The Motor Girls on a Tour | Page 6

to a standstill.
"I think it a shame to call Cecilia Thayer Clip," objected Belle. "She is
no more of a romp than - "
"Any boy," interrupted Bess. "Well, the boys call her Clip, and it's
handy."
By this time the new car was up in line with the others.
"'Lo, there!" called Cecilia, jerking her machine to a stop in the manner
deplored by skilled mechanicians.
"Look out!" cautioned Cora. "You'll `bust' something."
Cecilia had bounded out on the road.
"Stiff as a stick!" she exclaimed with a rather becoming twist of her
agile form. "I never make that road without absorbing every bump on
the thoroughfare."
Cecilia was not altogether pretty, for she had the "accent on her nose,"
as Cora put it, but she was dashing, and, at a glance, one might easily
guess why she had been called Clip.
Rachel Stuart was a striking blonde, tall to a fault, pink and white to
bisqueness and, withal, evidently conscious of her charms. Even while
motoring she affected the pastel tints, and this morning looked radiant
in her immense blue scarf and her well-matched blue linen coat.
"You look," said Cora to Cecilia, as the latter continued to shake
herself out of the absorbed bumps, "like nothing so much as like a
`strained' nurse - Jack's variety."
"Exactly that!" admitted Cecilia. "I have been searching high and low
for a cheap and economical rig to drive in, and I have just hit upon
this." She pirouetted wonderfully. "All ready made - the `strained' nurse
variety, sure enough. How do you like it?"

"Very becoming," decided Bess.
"And very practical," announced Belle.
"Sweet," declared Cora.
"When you say a good thing, stop," ordered Cecilia, just as Ray was
about to give her verdict.
"And now to the woods," suggested Cora. "We may as well put our
machines up in the open near the grove. We can see them there, and
make sure that no one is tempted to investigate them."
It was a level stretch over the field to the grove. Cora led the way and
the others followed. Lunch baskets and boxes were quickly gathered up
from the machines, and, with the keenness of appetite common to
young and healthy, and "painful" to our fair motorists (for Cecilia
declared her appetite "hurt"), the party scampered off to an appropriate
spot where the lunch might be enjoyed.
"And there are to be no boys?" asked Maud Morris, she with the
"imploring look," as Cecilia put it, although Maud was familiarly
known as a very sweet girl.
"No boys!" echoed Bess, between uncertain mouthfuls.
Daisy Bennet turned her head away in evident disapproval.
"No boys," she repeated faintly. Daisy did everything faintly. She was a
perfectly healthy young girl, but a little affected otherwise - too fond of
paper-covered books, and perhaps too fond of other sorts of romance.
But we must not condemn Daisy - her mother had the health-traveling
habit, and what was Daisy to do with herself?
Cora handed around some lettuce sandwiches.
"I am just as keen on boys as any of you," she admitted, "but for a real
motor girl tour it is apparent that boys will have to be tabooed."

Bess grunted, Belle sighed, Cecilia bit her tongue, Ray raised her
eyebrows, Hazel made a "minute" of the report.
"And silence ensued," commented Cecilia, reaching back of Maud and
securing a dainty morsel from the lunch-box of the latter.
"Water?" called Bess.
"Yes," chimed in Cecilia, "go and fetch some."
"The spring is away down the other side of the hill," objected Bess.
"You need the exercise," declared Cecilia.
"Clip, you go fetch some," suggested Cora, "and I'll give you half my
pie."
Without another word Clip was on her feet, had upset Daisy's
improvised table of sticks and paper napkins in her haste to secure the
water bottle, and was now running over the hill toward the spring.
Presently she stopped as if listening to something. Then she turned and
hurried back to the party on the grass. Her face was white with alarm.
"Oh!" she gasped. "I heard the awfullest groans! Some one must be
either dying for a drink, or dying from a drink. The groans were wet!"
Cora jumped up, as did some of the others.
"Come on," said Cora. "I'm not afraid. Some one may need help."
"Oh, they do - I am sure," panted Cecilia. "All kinds of help, I should
say. The moans were chromatic."
"Listen!" commanded Cora, as the sounds came over the hill. Low,
then fierce growls and groans, tapering down to grunts and exclamation
marks sounded through the grove.
"Oh!" screamed Belle.

"What can it be?" exclaimed Daisy.
"Almost anything," suggested Cora. "But we had best be specific," and
she started in the direction of the