LOST ON THE ROAD
"Look out there, Walter. Do you want the _Comet_ to run into the
_Whirlwind_?"
"We are getting pretty close," answered Walter, shutting off the power
and coasting with the emergency brake partly on, for he found he was
covering a hill too quickly. "I guess we can run alongside here. It's
a good enough road."
Jack brought the _Get There_ in line with the other runabout. "My, but
that shower is coming up quickly. I'll bet the girls are about scared
to death," he said. "Cora isn't particularly afraid of thunder
showers, but I know Belle is."
"Then, they will have to put up somewhere before they get to Wayside,"
remarked Ed. "That thunder is not far away."
As he said this a blinding flash of lightning confirmed the statement.
"I wonder if that chauffeur Mr. Robinson hired, knows any place to put
up at?" asked Jack, his voice showing some anxiety.
"Well, there doesn't happen to be any place on this road," replied Ed.
"I came along here last week, and the only thing like a hotel I could
find, was an old roadhouse over on a back lane."
"My, but that's sharp lightning!" exclaimed Walter. "Guess I had
better get ahead, Jack. It's safer now."
For a mile or so the runabouts went along, "between the flashes," as
Ed put it. Then the rain came, pelting and with a tempestuous wind.
"Where's the turn, Ed?" asked Jack. "We'd better hurry on and overtake
the girls now. I don't feel like risking it in this downpour. That
fellow from the garage may not know more than he has to, and I
promised Mr. Robinson I'd sort of look after the girls."
"Listen!" exclaimed Walter. "I don't hear the cars, do you?"
Both runabouts slowed up, and their occupants did not speak for some
seconds.
"But where could they have gone to?" questioned Jack, as their
strained ears failed to catch the familiar sound of a machine that had
been running on ahead.
All the joy of the stolen ride instantly vanished. Jack Kimball, Ed
Foster, and Walter Pennington were no longer the jolly, laughing
youths, chasing the motor girls. They were three very much frightened
young men, for the girls, and the car in which the other members of
the Robinson family had been riding, could neither be seen nor heard!
Through the pouring rain the boys dashed on. The rays of light from
the search-lamps revealed nothing but a stretch of mud that, every
moment, became deeper and more treacherous!
Then came a fork in the road, and beside the turn, a lane offered a
possible clue to the sudden departure of the girls from the main
highway.
"We've got to get out and look for their tracks," said Jack. "I
suppose they put on all kinds of speed to get away from the rain."
But although the other cars must have passed over that place
somewhere, and not more than half an hour before, not a mark of the
heavy wheels could be discerned in the deep, dark mud, though Jack
took off one of the oil lamps and flashed it across the road.
"Golly!" exclaimed Ed, in earnest despair.
"Which way?" asked Walter, deferring now to the much-alarmed brother
of Cora Kimball.
"I wish I knew," replied he, with a sigh.
"Suppose we make straight for the Wayside?" suggested Ed. "They may
have known of the roadhouse."
"How far to Wayside?" asked Jack.
"Five miles from this turn. See, there it is on the signpost," and he
flashed his lamp on the board that marked the fork in the road.
"Then we had better put on speed and make that," declared Jack, "and
if we do not find them there, we will have to turn back, that's all."
"Didn't Cora have any idea you were going to follow?" asked Walter, as
he got back in his car and then shot ahead close to the already moving
_Get There_.
"Not the least," replied Jack. "That comes of our foolish way of doing
school-boy tricks. It seems to me the joke is turned on us this time."
"Hope it is," declared Walter warmly. "I, for one, am now quite
willing to go in the kindergarten, if that's all we have to do to make
amends."
"I can't see where we missed them," almost shouted Jack, for the noise
of the thunder and rain added to the distance of sound between the
cars.
"Right at the spot where you told me to slow up," answered Walter. "I
heard them then, but not after that."
Each driver now put on all possible speed. It was a perilous ride. The
mud splashed up in the very faces of the young men, the lights that
flashed on the road were misleading, because of the almost continuous
flashes of lightning, and the danger of "skidding" increased with
every mile of the race.
"Who were in the hired car?" called Walter.
"Mrs. Robinson and her guest from the West, and the driver. I wish now
I had gone over and fixed it, so that they had the right man at the
wheel," yelled Jack. "I don't know a thing about this fellow."
"What's his name?" asked Ed.
"Bindle or something like that," was Jack's answer.
Ed gave Walter a tug at the sleeve. "Don't say anything to Jack," he
said, quietly, "but that's the very fellow who drove the Wakleys when
they went over into the ditch."
The shrill whistle of a train startled them.
"Any other danger likely to crop up?" asked Jack. "This will surely
give the girls all the experience they want, I'm afraid!"
But a few more miles and they must reach the inn.
If only they would find the party there safe and sound!
None of the boys was what might be called nervous, but when it came to
possible danger for the motor girls--Jack's sister, his friends and his
chum's friends--somehow a fear seized each of the three young men; a
fear to which they had thought themselves almost immune.
"There's the lights from the Wayside," announced Jack, a little later,
and then they turned their cars into the broad, private roadway.
Jack was first to reach the hotel office, but Ed and Walter were
almost at his heels.
"Has a party of automobile folks come in here since eight o'clock?" he
asked of the man at the desk.
"Yes," replied the clerk, turning over one page of the big book.
The boys' hearts gave a sort of jerk--it must be their girls, of
course.
"Have they registered?" went on Jack. "Were there three cars, and a
number of girls?"
The man looked down the list of names.
"Here they are," he said, indicating some fresh writing on the page.
Jack scanned it eagerly.
Then he looked at Ed and Walter.
"Not them!" he almost gasped. "We have got to turn back!"
"Make sure they have not come in, and are on some porch," said Ed.
"They may not have had a chance to get into the office."
But all inquiries failed to give any clue to the lost party, and,
without waiting for any refreshments, the almost exhausted young men
cranked up their muddy cars, and started off again over the very road
they had just succeeded in safely covering.
"We've got to have more spunk if we intend to find them," said Ed, for
Jack seemed too overcome to speak. "Why, they may be snug by some
farm-house fire, actually enjoying the situation."
"I hope so," faltered Jack. "But next time I'll _go along_--not after
them," and he threw in high gear, advanced the spark and then they
fairly flew over the turnpike, back to the fork that must have hidden
the secret of the turn in the road.