The Campfire Girls Go Motoring | Page 7

her going off like that. But by the puzzled frown on her face I
knew that she didn't understand it any more than I did. Gladys was the
last one in the world to do such a thing. There must be some reason.
From my seat I could see that the Frog, who had also stopped for
gasoline when we did, was not far behind us. The car he was in looked
like a racing car, with a very long hood in front, and he could easily
have gotten ahead of us. I wondered for a long time why he did not do
so, and then suddenly I had a premonition. He was following us, or
rather Nyoda. Something had told me when I first saw him that we
should see him again. I made a horrible face at him behind my veil and
wished something would happen to his car.
As we were passing through the village of S---- a chicken started up
right under our front wheels, uttering a startled and startling squawk.
Nyoda swerved to one side and ran squarely into a tree. There was a
bump and a grating sound somewhere beneath us and then the nice
cheerful humming of the motor stopped. Nyoda got out of the car to see
what had been damaged.

"As far as I can see, only the lamp bracket is bent," she said, but when
she tried to start the car again it wouldn't start.
"Maybe the driving spider has caught the flywheel," said Sahwah,
trying to be funny.
Just then the red roadster did pass us, going slowly, and the Frog kept
his eyes riveted on Nyoda all the while. She never looked at him. She
had unbuttoned the roof over the engine and was poking her fingers
down into the dragon's mouth, but undoubtedly the trouble wasn't there.
There was a repair shop not far away--all of the towns along the touring
routes which have an eye to business have some sort of one--and
Nyoda repaired thither and fetched a man who tinkered knowingly with
the regions underneath the Glow-worm and then reported in a dust
choked voice that one of the gears was "on the blink". Just what part of
a car's vital organs a gear is I don't know, but I judged it was an
important one because Nyoda looked serious.
"What will we do?" she said, tragically.
"Can fix you up in the shop," said the man, wiping his forehead with a
blue and white handkerchief. "We have a dismantled car of the same
make there and can take a gear out of that."
So the Glow-worm was trundled up the street into the shop, and we
were told that the damage would be fixed by the next morning. The
next morning! We looked at each other in consternation.
"But we must get to Ft. Wayne to-night," said Nyoda, in a tone of
finality.
"Sorry, ladies," said the foreman of the repair shop, "but it can't be
done." Then we realized that we would have to stay in S---- all night.
Here was a pretty mess. And Gladys and Hinpoha and the other two
waiting for us in Ft. Wayne.
"We'll have to let them know," said Nyoda. "They'll worry when they
see we're not coming."

"Let them worry," said Sahwah, darkly. "It serves them right for what
they did to us."
But, of course, we had to let them know. So Nyoda wired the little
hotel where we had planned to stay--and what a good time we were
going to have!--and told the girls to stay there for the night and to
please wait for us in the morning and not leave us again. Of course, the
message was much more condensed than that, but Nyoda got it all in.
Then there was nothing else for us to do but make the best of a bad
bargain and hunt up the one hotel in S---- and prepare to spend the
night. But when we got there it was crowded. There was a big wedding
in town that night, we were informed, and the out-of-town guests had
filled the hotel. They were already two in a room and there was no hope
of doubling up. Seeing our dismay at this news, the clerk bethought
himself of a woman in the village who had a very large house and often
let rooms to tourists when the hotel was full. She had once been very
wealthy, but had lost everything but the house and now made her living
by keeping boarders.
We thanked him and hurried off to the address to which he had directed
us. We were very hot and tired and dusty and amazingly hungry. It was
already six o'clock in the evening, and with the difference