THE END OF THE DRIVE.
As the Girl Scouts entered the dining-room of their hotel the following
day they looked anything but jubilant. The trip through the desert
loomed up before them, with its tediousness, its ugliness, its dangerous
aspect. For, in spite of everything they said to the contrary, they all
secretly believed that trouble was in store for them sooner or later.
And what place could be more opportune than the barren waste land of the
next three states?
It was Marjorie who sensed the general depression of the whole party and
made an effort to dispel it. She wished that she might joke about the
boys who were following them, but that subject was still to be kept a
secret from Mrs. Hart. Instead, therefore, she reminded them of the
rewards they were to receive. Her vivacity, however, failed to draw any
spark from the others.
“We heard all that before, on the way out,” remarked Florence,
cynically. “And nothing happened. Even if we get there safely, Miss
Vaughn will find some other excuse to refuse us.”
“You don’t seem to think much of our worthy benefactor,” observed Ethel.
“It’s a lucky thing that Alice isn’t along, to hear such opinions of her
aunt!”
“Oh, Alice wouldn’t care!” exclaimed Florence.
“But maybe Mrs. Hart does,” Marjorie reminded her.
The chaperone smiled knowingly; she was not surprised at the girls’
estimate of her friend’s character. Indeed, she had not approved of Miss
Vaughn’s hasty action herself, yet she saw the difficulty of her
position.
“No, I don’t blame you girls a bit,” she assured them. “I think it was
mean to take those strangers’ words in the first place.”
“And you really do believe that we are innocent, don’t you, Mrs. Hart?”
demanded Daisy, eagerly.
“I certainly do!” replied the older woman. “If I hadn’t been certain of
it, I never would have consented to come with you, for I can’t say that
I thoroughly enjoy such a long trip. And then there’s the desert—”
“Oh, the desert is all right!” interrupted Marjorie. “We got through it
before, and we will this time. Please don’t worry, Mrs. Hart.”
“No, let’s forget it,” urged Ethel, falling in with Marjorie’s effort to
raise the spirits of the party. “We’re safe for tonight—nothing can
happen to us now!”
“I hope not!” sighed Lily, who was never quite at ease.
Long after supper was over the girls sat out on the pleasant porch of
the hotel and contemplated the loveliness of the scene, trying, it would
seem, to absorb enough beauty to last them during the coming days. Then,
as darkness came on they grew more and more quiet until Ethel suggested
that they go to bed.
“Did you make sure that the car was safe?” asked Lily, as usual. It was
a habit of hers to make such an inquiry each night before retiring.
“Yes,” returned Marjorie, laughingly. “The garage-man bolted the big
door on the inside, and then let himself out through the office. That’s
a dead-latch—and he has the only key in his possession.”
“We ought to be safe then,” remarked Daisy, with a sigh of relief.
“Unless the garage burns down!”
“Daisy, how can you suggest such a thing!” cried Ethel. “Wait till we
get upstairs! If I don’t put your head under the cold water spigot—”
“Just try and catch me!” challenged the other, darting nimbly up the
stairs.
But when the girls reached their rooms they discovered that they were
too tired to romp; the seriousness of their undertaking, the prospect of
the trip through the desert which was before them, dampened their
spirits, and they lost no time in getting into bed.
Marjorie had promised to awaken them with her alarm clock, but she found
the summons unnecessary. Long before eight, they were all dressed, ready
for their departure.
“Who drives today?” asked Lily, as they were finishing their breakfast.
“Ethel,” replied Marjorie, without a moment’s hesitation.
“Then, Ethel,” remarked Lily, “you have to go out and get the car and
bring it around to us!”
“And be sure to have plenty of gas!” cautioned Florence.
“And don’t forget oil!” added someone.
“And water!” put in another.
Ethel raised her hands to her ears.
“That’s enough advice, please! Somebody get my bag, and I’ll meet you
all there at the side steps.”
“Don’t forget the car!” teased Florence, provokingly.
The remark was only a jest, uttered with the hope of getting a rise out
of Ethel; therefore none of the scouts was surprised to see her appear,
two or three minutes later, without the car. It was so like Ethel to
return tit for tat, and to keep them waiting, for punishment.
“Ethel, please don’t waste time,” remonstrated Mrs. Hart, nervous to be
off.
“Yes—hurry!” cried Florence, in a tone of command.
But Ethel only stood still and shook her head.
“I can’t get the car,” she said, sadly; “because the car is gone!”
Marjorie looked up sharply; surely it was unlike Ethel to carry a joke
so far.
“You’re teasing us!” she said.
But the look on Ethel’s serious face assured the girls that she was not
jesting.
“It’s the honest truth, girls,” she declared; “it’s gone, and neither
the proprietor nor the garage-man knows a thing about it.”
With the exception of Marjorie, the girls grew hysterical as the meaning
of the whole situation dawned upon them. Unsatisfied with Ethel’s scant
report, they rushed to the garage to make inquiry for themselves.
“It’s a fact,” said the man, in answer to their numerous questions, most
of which were put to him at the same time. “And we haven’t a sign of a
clue!”
“But how did the thief get in?” demanded Marjorie. “If you have the only
key? Was either lock broken?”
“No, ma’am.”
Marjorie looked at him keenly; it was impossible to accuse him of the
theft. And yet how else could the car have left the garage? She felt
baffled, defeated; here was another mystery which looked as if it never
would be solved!
“So the whole trip is off!” wailed Daisy, bursting into tears as they
returned to the hotel. “And you girls have all lost your rewards—just on
our account!”
“No, no, don’t feel badly, Daisy,” said Lily, putting her arm around the
other girl’s shoulder. “We’re not blaming you—”
By the time they had reached the hotel, the news had spread, and guests
and clerks alike came forward with all sorts of offers of help. But
somehow they felt at last as if there were nothing to do.
“Did you carry insurance?” asked Mrs. Hart of Marjorie.
“Oh, yes,” replied the latter, “but not nearly enough to cover the cost
of a new car. Besides, it takes a good while to get the money; and even
if we borrowed it, we’d never secure a new car in time to make the trip
on schedule.” She paused a second, evidently making a mighty effort to
control herself. “We—we—will have to use the rest of our money to go
back by rail.”
“You certainly have had hard luck!” commented the older woman,
sympathetically. “I’m awfully sorry.”
“The fates were against us!” sighed Florence, wearily.
“Let’s—let’s go to our rooms again!” whispered Daisy. “I just can’t help
crying—”
“All right—we’ll go have a good cry!” assented Lily. “Maybe that will
help.”
Laughing and weeping at the same time, the scouts made their way to the
second floor, to discuss their plight in view of their most advisable
move.
“Anyway, we don’t have to drive across the desert,” remarked Marjorie.
“But what shall we do?” asked Florence.
“Go home, of course,” said Ethel.
“I’m not so sure of that,” put in Marjorie, who was slowly regaining her
courage. “That may not be practical. In the first place, it might be
difficult to secure good accommodations from here back to the east; and
in the second place, I’d like to see our friends again.”
“What friends?” demanded Florence.
“Aunt Emeline and the Crowells. I’m simply not content to let the matter
drop—I mean about all those misfortunes which we met with on the way
out. Why, even those two officers thought it was unusual.”
“I wonder,” mused Lily, “whether we ever would have found out, if this
hadn’t happened. It hardly seems possible—”
“It wouldn’t have seemed possible on the way out if we hadn’t known that
it was a fact,” Marjorie reminded her. “Imagine having one’s clothing
stolen!”
“But how do you think you can find out anything now?” inquired Daisy.
“I don’t know—only by some sort of detective work, like we managed last
summer. Now my plan is this: to wait here until Jack and John turn up
later in the day, consult them, and ask them to help us. What do you all
think?”
Daisy suddenly heaved a great sigh; she was weary of the whole
proceeding.
“I’m going home!” she announced. “Before we get into any more trouble.
Who will go with me?”
“I will!” volunteered Florence, immediately. “I don’t want to go back
and paw around that old lady as if to beg her for a car. I guess we can
get accommodations on some train.”
“I’m with you, Flos and Daisy,” declared Ethel, briefly.
“But won’t anybody help me?” begged Marjorie. “Aren’t you a bit
curious?”
“I’ll stick with you, Marj!” said Lily. “At least until the boys come
and we get their advice.”
“Oh, thank you, Lily!” exclaimed Marjorie, impulsively hugging her chum.
“Now we will find out something!”
“If there’s anything to be found out!” remarked Florence, cynically.
The others lost no time in consulting time-tables, and phoning about
reservations, and found, to their joy, that they could leave at noon on
a train for Chicago. Marjorie and Lily looked rather wistful as the
locomotive pulled out of the station, leaving them all alone, save for
Mrs. Hart, in this strange town. They had been secretly hoping all
morning that the boys would arrive before the others left; now, as they
turned their faces back toward the hotel it was their one thought. But
the clerk’s answer to their inquiry was just the same as before: no one
had called for them.
“Can you imagine what could have happened to them?” asked Marjorie. “I
thought I caught a glimpse of them over at that hotel across the street,
about supper time last night. Surely they wouldn’t start without us.”
“And they must have heard about the stolen car,” added Lily. “The police
are investigating it already.”
The girls returned listlessly to Mrs. Hart’s room and found her engaged
in the process of packing. She looked up gloomily at their entrance, and
informed them that she was returning to San Francisco on the morrow.
“And so,” she concluded, “if you two young ladies want a chaperone, you
will have to go too.”
“I guess it’s the only thing to do,” admitted Marjorie, regretfully. “So
we might as well pack our things, Lily.”
In her speech and her thought Marjorie Wilkinson was as near to
acknowledgement of defeat as she had ever been in her life.