The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House | Page 5

seat beside the little old woman and took the poor unconscious
head in her arms.
"Oh, anywhere," answered Betty indifferently, her mind on one object
only. "On the floor or on the roof or anywhere, only hurry. Now,
Mollie dear, drive as you never drove before."
Mollie obediently threw in the clutch, and the heavy car shot forward,
throwing Grace to a seat on the floor where she fell with more haste
than dignity.
Nobody noticed her, however, and even a growing bump on her
forehead received scant attention. All were too intent upon the matter at
hand.
At this spot the road was very narrow and on each side sloped down
sharply about ten or twelve feet to the level of the fields. It seemed
almost an impossibility to turn the car in that narrow space without
precipitating it down either one or the other of the steep banks.
After many fruitless attempts and barely escaped tragedies, however,
Mollie finally succeeded, and the car was sent flying down the white
stretch of road that led to Camp Liberty and the hospital.
"Oh, I hope we'll get there in time," Amy murmured over and over
again, and kept looking at the pathetic little victim. "Is she still
breathing, Betty? Are you sure?"
To this Betty always nodded in the affirmative, her little mouth grimly
set, her eyes fixed steadily ahead, as though she would draw their
destination nearer to them by the very force of her desire.
"I wonder," Mollie flung back at them from between clenched teeth,
"what that motorcyclist looked like. I'd like to meet him again--with a
firing squad."

"Why I saw him," came Grace's muffled voice from the floor of the car.
"So did I," added Amy.
"So you would recognize him again?" Mollie demanded eagerly,
swerving the car perilously near the edge of the road.
"Are you sure?" added Betty, taking her eyes from the far horizon and
regarding Grace intently.
Both girls nodded vigorously.
"His head was down, of course," Amy continued, "but I'd know his face
in a minute if I saw it again. Eyes close together, long nose--"
"And a little mustache," Grace finished eagerly. "The kind Percy
Falconer used to wear and we girls called an eyebrow on his lip."
"He must have been a thing of beauty," commented Mollie.
"He had the meanest kind of face," said Amy, with a little shudder.
"The kind you wouldn't like to meet on a dark night."
"I should have judged as much from your description," said Betty dryly.
"There's one good thing about him--we ought to be able to recognize
him easily."
"You talk as though you expected to meet him again," said Amy,
looking at her curiously.
"I do," answered Betty determinedly. "Some time we're going to find
that fellow and make him pay for what he's done. Think of it!" she
added, turning upon them suddenly while her eyes flashed fire. "To run
down a helpless old woman in the road and then not even stop to find
out whether you've killed her or not! We'll find him if we have to
search the country for fifty miles around!"
CHAPTER III

THE SHADOW OF MYSTERY
The girls never forgot that mad ride to Camp Liberty. Mile after mile
sped by on wings, and it was not till they were on the outskirts of the
town itself that the victim of the accident showed signs of returning
consciousness.
Then she sighed, moved her head a little restlessly on Betty's shoulder,
and opened her eyes.
"Oh, dear," she said, faintly but so abruptly that Betty and Grace started.
"I knew I'd have--to do it--some day!"
When the girls came to know her better they no longer wondered at her
quaint and unexpected sayings. But at the moment this queer statement,
coming as it did from one who they thought must be hovering at death's
door, rather startled them.
"Wh--what?" stammered Betty, bewildered, while the others stared
with wide eyes. "What did you say?"
"I said," replied the surprising old woman, in a stronger voice, trying
unsteadily to straighten herself in the seat and raising trembling hands
to her rather dilapidated old hat, "that I was sure to come to it some day.
There's a fate in such things."
The girls looked at each other uncertainly, and into the minds of each
flashed the startled suspicion that perhaps the poor old soul was
mentally defective. Or, maybe, the accident--
The woman seemed to sense something of their bewilderment, and into
her eyes, still bright in spite of her age and what she had just gone
through, there came a twinkle--yes, a real twinkle.
"No, I'm not crazy," she assured them, regaining her strength with
amazing quickness. "You see, it seemed kind o' funny to me after