A RECKLESS DRIVER.
"The Sans have certainly had one beautiful day for their picnic, but if
they don't put in an appearance pretty soon they will be caught in a
rain." Seated beside Marjorie and Lucy Warner in the big porch swing,
Jerry squinted at the rapidly clouding sky.
While the day had been warm and moderately sunny, dark clouds had been
looming up here and there in the sky since four o'clock. Scattered at
first, they had gradually banked solidly in the west, obscuring the
sunset and promising rain before nightfall.
"What time is it, Jeremiah?" asked Lucy. "I promised to meet Katherine
here on the veranda at five-thirty. She left her handbag at Lillian's
last night and we are going to walk over there before dinner."
"Why, Luciferous!" Jerry fixed Lucy with an amazed eye. "Can I believe
that you and your precious watch have parted company even for a brief
half hour!"
Lucy giggled. Her extreme fondness for the wrist watch Ronny had given
her was well known to her chums.
"I broke the crystal," she confessed. "It dropped from my hand the other
night on the lavatory floor. I miss it terribly you had better believe.
It will be fixed tomorrow, thank goodness."
"Surprised at such carelessness. Ahem!" Jerry teased. "If you want to
know the time, it is twenty-seven minutes past five. Your kindred spirit
should appear in three minutes."
"Here she comes now." Marjorie had spied Katherine coming up the walk.
"Did you think I was going to be late?" Katherine called from the bottom
step. "I had an awful time looking up some data at the library. I just
left there and ran half the way here. It looks like rain, but, if we
walk fast, we can go over to Wenderblatt's and back before it starts.
Want to go along, Marjorie and Jerry?"
"I might as well. I've nothing else to do before dinner. Come on,
Jeremiah. A fast walk before dinner will be a splendid appetizer."
Marjorie rose from the swing and brushed down her wrinkled linen skirt.
"Don't need an appetizer. I'm famished now. Lead me on. I may lose half
a pound. That will be something attempted, something done, as our friend
H. W. Longfellow sagely remarks in the 'Village Blacksmith.'"
Without further lingering the four girls left the veranda and started
down the drive at a swift walk. The Wenderblatt's residence was not far
from the campus, but the sky was growing more threatening.
"It begins to look as though we would have to run all the way back to
the Hall or get a ducking," warned Jerry as they neared Lillian's home.
"We can't stop to talk, girls. We had better wait for Katherine at the
gate. If the whole gang of us goes up to the house we will lose time."
"Yes, I want to be back at the Hall for an early dinner. I must study
like sixty this evening, for I won't have a minute tomorrow. Chapel in
the morning, and I have promised to go over to Houghton House tomorrow
afternoon with Leila. Then we are all going to Muriel's and Hortense's
Sunday night spread. Sunday seems the shortest day in the week,"
Marjorie ended with a little regretful gesture.
"I'll be back directly." Coming to the high gate of the ornamental iron
fence which inclosed the professor's property, Katherine clanged it
hurriedly after her and sped up the walk to the house.
True to her word it was not more than ten minutes before she rejoined
them, her handbag swinging from her arm.
"Lillian was so sorry you wouldn't come up. She invited us all to dinner.
I told her we simply must hurry back to the Hall. She----"
A sudden deep rumble of thunder drowned Katherine's speech. It was
followed by a sharp blinding flash of lightning.
"We had better run for it," counseled Jerry. "There will be more thunder
and lightning before the rain really starts. Don't let a little thing
like thunder worry you, children."
By common consent the quartette broke into a gentle run. Soon they were
on the highway and not more than a block from the campus wall. As they
neared the east gate a terrific reverberating peal of thunder rent the
air. So completely did it obliterate all other sound that none of the
four heard the purr of a motor behind them, driven at excessive speed.
"Look out!" A sense of impending danger warning Jerry to turn her head,
even in full flight, her voice rose in a sharp scream.
Her friends heard it dimly as the speeding car bore down upon them.
Jerry made a wild dive out of harm's way, dragging Marjorie, who was
nearest to her, with her. Lucy, who was on the outer edge of the road
made a stumbling step backward. Katherine---- Through a mist of horror
the three girls saw the machine catch her, flinging her off the road.
They heard cries issue from the black and white roadster as it shot down
the road.
"Katherine! Oh, do you suppose she is dead?" Already Lucy was kneeling
on the ground beside the silent form in an agony of suspense. "She was
almost in the middle of the road. I didn't have time to warn her. I
didn't hear it until it ran her down." Lucy's face was white and set.
"Her heart's beating." Marjorie knelt at Katherine's other side, her
hand inside Katherine's pongee blouse. "Better go over her for broken
bones, Lucy." Marjorie was trembling violently though her voice was
steady.
"It was Leslie Cairns who did that!" Jerry hotly accused. "I wonder if
she'll have the decency to come back. She must know she ran some one
down. I heard the girls in her car scream. I guess she turned in at the
gate. Keep off the road, girls. Here come the rest of the picnickers.
One accident is enough for today. She was speeding. That's why she was
so far ahead of the others. I shall hail this first car and make 'em
take Katherine up to the Hall."
Jerry did not need to hail the car. In the fading daylight the girl at
the wheel, who happened to be Margaret Wayne, brought her automobile to
a stop almost even with the roadside group.
"What has happened?" she called out sharply.
"Your friend Miss Cairns just ran down Miss Langly," returned Jerry
grimly. "She isn't dead, but we don't know how badly she may be hurt.
May we have the use of your car to take her to the Hall?"
"Certainly," came the response in frightened tones. Next instant the
seven occupants of the car had piled out of it and gathered around the
still unconscious girl.
A swift patter of raindrops struck the group, beating gently on
Katherine's white, upturned face. Marjorie had now lifted her head to an
easy position on her lap.
"Have any of you smelling salts?" she inquired calmly of the frightened
circle, "or perhaps you have a water bottle with you."
"The luncheon things are in one of the cars away back. We have no water
with us. Won't the rain help to revive her?" Margaret Wayne asked
lamely.
"We shall not give it time to do that," Marjorie returned dryly. "If you
will help us lift her we will get her into the car at once. It is only
two or three minutes' drive to the Hall."
The others of the party being freshmen, they willingly sprang to
Marjorie's assistance. Raised from the ground, Katherine opened her
eyes and groaned a little.
"What--happened? Oh, I--remember. My back! It--hurts--so." She closed
her eyes wearily.
Slender though she was, it became no easy matter to place her in the
tonneau of the automobile. The credit of the undertaking went to
Marjorie and Jerry, who exerted their young strength to the utmost for
their injured friend. By this time a procession of automobiles
containing the returning picnickers was drawn up along the road. The
sound of excited voices from within these cars bade Marjorie lose no
time.
"Will you please drive on before the others come up?" she entreated.
"They know now that something has happened. We ought not to have a crowd
around. I hope your passengers won't mind walking to the campus."
"Not a bit of it," assured two or three of the freshmen who had heard
her remarks.
"Thank you." Marjorie flashed the group of girls one of her beautiful,
kindly smiles which none of them forgot in a hurry.
Alarmed though she was by the accident, Margaret was half resentful of
Marjorie's calm manner. Still she had no choice but to do as she was
requested. She inwardly wished that Leslie had had the prudence to
drive moderately. This affair was likely to make trouble for them all.
"Ready?" she interrogated, turning in the driver's seat to Marjorie.
An affirmative and she started her car for the Hall. Just at the gate
they met the black and white roadster. Leslie was its sole occupant now.
"Hello!" she hailed. "Is that you, Margaret? What was the matter back
there? Do you know?" Leslie leaned far out of her car in the gathering
twilight.
"Your roadster hit Miss Langly. I don't know how it happened. She is in
my car. Her friends are with her. You'd better go on down and tell the
rest what has happened. They have stopped back there."
"What?" This time Leslie's pet interjection came involuntarily and with
a tinge of fear. "I saw a bunch of girls, but I was sure I didn't hit
any of them. See you at the Hall." Leslie started her car without
further words.
"She has nerve!" muttered Jerry. "She thinks she is going to slide out
of this easily. Well, she can't lay this outrage to anyone else. She had
no business to be exceeding the speed limit. She never sounded a horn,
either. Poor Kathie! I hope she isn't badly hurt."
"I--I--am all right, Jerry." Katherine had heard. "The car just brushed
me; hard--enough to throw me--on my back. That's all."
"That's all," repeated Lucy indignantly. "Enough, I should say. Musn't
talk much, Kathie. You'll be in your room and in bed right away."
"Glad of it. So--tired," mumbled Katharine, and closed her eyes again.
The injured girl was carried into the Hall just as a driving rain began
to descend. Miss Remson promptly telephoned for her own physician and
bustled about, an efficient first aid, until he arrived.
Established temporarily on the living room davenport, Katherine braced
up wonderfully under the wise little manager's treatment. To her plea
that she could walk upstairs to her room, if assisted by two of her
friends, Miss Remson would not listen.
"Wait until the doctor comes, my dear," she insisted. "He will know
what's best for you."
News of the accident having spread through the Hall, girls hurried from
all parts of the house to the living room, where they were promptly
headed off by Lucy, Marjorie and Jerry from intruding upon Katherine.
Thus far neither the Sans nor the four freshmen who roomed at the Hall
had put in an appearance.
The arrival of Doctor Thurston, a large, kindly man of about forty, was
a relief to all concerned. Very gently he lifted Katherine in his
strong arms and carried her upstairs to her room.
"She has had a narrow escape," he told her anxious friends, a little
later. "Her back is sprained. It is a wonder it was not broken. Two
weeks in bed and she will be all right again. Students who drive their
own cars should go slowly along the campus part of the road. There are
always girls in plenty on foot. The one who ran her down must have had
very poor policy not even to sound a horn."