The Motor Girls on a Tour | Page 7

mysterious sounds.
Cecilia followed, as did Bess, while the others held off in evident fear.
Although it was high noon, in the grove the heavy spruce and cedar
trees darkened the place, and the farther the girls penetrated into the
depths of the wood, the deeper did the shadows close in around them.
Cora picked up a stout stick as she advanced.
"Get me one," begged Cecilia. "We may encounter a bear."
"Human?" asked Cora with a laugh.
"Preferably," answered Cecilia, keeping very close to Cora.
The noises had ceased. The girls halted, waiting for a sound to give
them the clue of direction.
"He's dead!" gasped Cecilia. "It was the drink - he got the drink, and
then died!"
"As long as he got it," whispered Cora. She was anxious to catch
another "groan."
"There!" exclaimed Bess, as a sound, faint but decisive, was heard from
a hollow ahead.
"Where?" asked Cora, purposely misunderstanding Bess.
"Here!" called Cecilia, who, with sudden resolve, had snatched the
stick from Cora's hand, and now darted forward.
She went straight for the spring.
CHAPTER III

"NO BOYS!"
Such shouting and such laughing!
There, hidden in the thicket near the spring, were discovered Jack
Kimball and Walter Pennington, while the chuckles and other noises
emerging from mysterious parts of the wood indicated the presence of
human beings, although the sounds had a queer similarity to that made
by furry beasts.
"Oh, Clip! Spare me!" called Jack, as Cecilia actually undertook to
punish physically the offending young man. "I really did not think you
would be scared - in fact, I had an idea you were scare- immune "
"I am," declared the girl; "but the idea of me wasting sympathy! I might
have discovered the dead man of all my life-long dreams - had to
appear in court, and all the other delightful consequences of finding a
man under suspicious circumstances; and there you are not even sick.
Jack Kimball, how could you? You might at least have had the
politeness to be deadly ill."
Walter crawled out from the thicket.
"I thought I smelled eating," he remarked, "and I suggested that we
postpone the wild and woolly until we had investigated."
"Oh, come on," called Cora. "We may as well allow you to move on. -
You have actually interrupted the plans for our first official run.'
"Good!" exclaimed Ed Foster, who, with some other young chaps, had
collected themselves from the various haunts. "Any boys?"
"Boys!" echoed Cora.
"B-o-y-s!" drawled Maud, "chucking the imploring look," as Cecilia
whispered to Cora.
"We have been discussing the question," declared Bess, as they all
started toward the lunch spread on the grass, "and we have now fully

decided. The answer is: No boys!"
This verdict brought forth the expected chorus of groans from the
young men.
"Indeed, you may be glad to get a fellow when you find yourselves in a
good and proper smashup," declared Jack, "and I predict a smash-up
about every other mile."
The sight of the tempting lunch and that of the other young ladies who
had not undertaken the march to the spring, was the signal for a "grand
rush" - and that was about all.
When the boys extricated themselves from the "rush" there was not a
crumb visible.
"We had all we wished," faltered the circumspect Ray Stuart. "You
were entirely welcome - might have saved, at least, the dishes."
"Oh," breathed Ed, "it is so much pleasanter to poach - don't spoil it."
Ed cast a most appreciative glance at Ray. She expected it, of course,
and accepted it with a smile.
Clip was talking earnestly to Jack, Cora was being entertained by
Walter, who, at the same time, managed to keep up a running
conversation with the group of girls now busy putting away the lunch
things.
"We had a dreadful accident coming out," said Belle. "Bess ran over - "
"A square meal in a square basket," interrupted Bess. "I demolished the
hamper that Ida Giles had bestowed on Sidney Wilcox. It was a peace
offering, I believe."
"And you should have seen the kind of `pieces' Bess made of it,"
commented Hazel with a merry laugh.
"Hush!" hissed Ed with his finger to his lips.

"Something tells me that the demolished hamper forbodes evil. You
will regret the day, Miss Elizabeth, that you spilled Sid Wilcox's-"
"Pumpkin pie," finished Cora. "I never saw such pumpkiny pumpkin
pie in my life. I can smell it yet!"
"Mrs. Giles' famous home-made," quoted Walter. "Well, it might have
been worse - they might have eaten that pie."
"Say, fellows," said Jack suddenly, "this is all very pretty - the girls, I
mean, of course - but does it smite any one of you young rustics that we
have an engagement