The Outdoor Girls in a Motor Car | Page 9

been as badly hurt as you supposed, and also she may have simulated an injury hoping she would get a chance to escape unobserved. Was there anything strange about her?"
"Yes, there was," admitted Betty, slowly, and she gave the details of the accident, how, most unexpectedly the girl had toppled from the tree, the subsequent swerving of the auto, and how, several times, the girl had murmured something about not going back to a certain man.
"Hum!" mused Dr. Brown, "it is rather odd, I must admit. What do you suppose she was doing in the tree?"
"We haven't been able to guess," confessed Amy; "perhaps she climbed up to avoid a dog--we have met several dogs to-day."
"It's possible," Dr. Brown commented.
"And the tree was an easy one to climb," spoke Mollie. "I am not a very good climber, but that tree offered temptations."
The doctor smiled.
"Well, let us make a search," he proposed. "Is there any special place where a girl, who might wish to escape observation for some unknown reason, could hide around here, Mrs. Meckelburn?"
"There's the barn."
"Very good, we will search there, and we may be able to trace her footprints. Please do not any of you walk under the window, nor in a line from it until we have made some observations. We will play a little detective game," and he smiled frankly at the girls.
But if he had hoped anything from the clue of the footprints he was doomed to disappointment for, though there were plain indications where the girl had landed when she jumped from the window, the marks were soon lost sight of on the harder ground a short distance from the house.
A search of the barn revealed no trace of her, and one of the farm hands, coming to the house a little later, joined in the search. He reported that there had been seen no hatless, injured--or apparently injured--girl crossing the fields.
"Then she must have made a circle about the house, and gone out on the road," suggested Betty. "She is probably far enough away from here by this time, poor thing!"
"Perhaps we ought to search for her," spoke Mollie. "Of course it was not our fault, since we are sure the car did not hit her; but perhaps it scared her so that she fell."
"I should not blame myself if I were you," said the physician, kindly. "It was evidently not your fault. You did all you could for the girl. If she did not want further treatment that is her lookout. Of course, if she wandered away in a delirium, that is another story, and perhaps it would be well to search down the road. She did not pass us, or we would have seen her, coming from my office along the main highway as we did," he said to Mollie. "A search in the opposite direction would be the only feasible thing to conduct."
"Then let's do it!" cried Mollie. "And you please drive, Dr. Brown, I haven't yet gotten over my nervousness."
Mrs. Meckelburn refused an invitation to go in the car, but the four girls started off, Dr. Brown at the wheel. They went as far back as the tree which was the scene of the accident and saw no trace of the girl. Nor had any of several other autoists, or drivers of horse vehicles, to whom they appealed, seen her.
"She has just disappeared--that's all," said Betty. "I wonder if we had better notify the police?"
"I will attend to that for you," responded Dr. Brown, kindly. "There is no need for you to be mixed up in this. Sometimes, with the best intentions in the world, one gets unpleasant notoriety in these cases. I will notify the authorities to be on the lookout for the girl, for her own sake alone. Later, if there is need of you----"
He paused suggestively.
"We will leave you our addresses," said Betty, quickly. "Thank you for looking after this for us."
"I am only too glad to be of service. Well, as long as there is no patient to be found here, I had better return to those waiting for me at my office."
"Go there in my car," proposed Mollie, quickly, "and then I will take the wheel again. I am feeling better now."
"Such a fine car as this ought to make anyone feel fine! It is a beauty!" and he seemed to caress the steering wheel. "I am getting a small runabout," he went on, "and that is how I happen to know how to drive. I learned some time ago."
They flashed past Mrs. Meckelburn's house, calling to her of their failure, and saying that they would be back soon. A little later, having left the physician at his home, they were again in the pleasant farm house, sipping tea which their hostess had thoughtfully