Part 16 (1/2)

”Not half as bad as your new gloves. They give me a regular spell of the pig skin fever. I'll bet they're made out of junk, and you got stuck. Three dollars for a pair of gloves to save your lily-white hands--your lily-white hands!” and he ended in the strain of the familiar college song.

”Well, I'll be going,” said Jack. ”See to it that neither of you fellows do so much primping that we miss our--guess,” and with that the three young men parted, each going his own way to make ready for the run after the motor girls.

CHAPTER XIV

LOST ON THE ROAD

”Look out there, Walter. Do you want the _Comet_ to run into the _Whirlwind_?”

”We are getting pretty close,” answered Walter, shutting off the power and coasting with the emergency brake partly on, for he found he was covering a hill too quickly. ”I guess we can run alongside here. It's a good enough road.”

Jack brought the _Get There_ in line with the other runabout. ”My, but that shower is coming up quickly. I'll bet the girls are about scared to death,” he said. ”Cora isn't particularly afraid of thunder showers, but I know Belle is.”

”Then, they will have to put up somewhere before they get to Wayside,”

remarked Ed. ”That thunder is not far away.”

As he said this a blinding flash of lightning confirmed the statement.

”I wonder if that chauffeur Mr. Robinson hired, knows any place to put up at?” asked Jack, his voice showing some anxiety.

”Well, there doesn't happen to be any place on this road,” replied Ed.

”I came along here last week, and the only thing like a hotel I could find, was an old roadhouse over on a back lane.”

”My, but that's sharp lightning!” exclaimed Walter. ”Guess I had better get ahead, Jack. It's safer now.”

For a mile or so the runabouts went along, ”between the flashes,” as Ed put it. Then the rain came, pelting and with a tempestuous wind.

”Where's the turn, Ed?” asked Jack. ”We'd better hurry on and overtake the girls now. I don't feel like risking it in this downpour. That fellow from the garage may not know more than he has to, and I promised Mr. Robinson I'd sort of look after the girls.”

”Listen!” exclaimed Walter. ”I don't hear the cars, do you?”

Both runabouts slowed up, and their occupants did not speak for some seconds.

”But where could they have gone to?” questioned Jack, as their strained ears failed to catch the familiar sound of a machine that had been running on ahead.

All the joy of the stolen ride instantly vanished. Jack Kimball, Ed Foster, and Walter Pennington were no longer the jolly, laughing youths, chasing the motor girls. They were three very much frightened young men, for the girls, and the car in which the other members of the Robinson family had been riding, could neither be seen nor heard!

Through the pouring rain the boys dashed on. The rays of light from the search-lamps revealed nothing but a stretch of mud that, every moment, became deeper and more treacherous!

Then came a fork in the road, and beside the turn, a lane offered a possible clue to the sudden departure of the girls from the main highway.

”We've got to get out and look for their tracks,” said Jack. ”I suppose they put on all kinds of speed to get away from the rain.”

But although the other cars must have pa.s.sed over that place somewhere, and not more than half an hour before, not a mark of the heavy wheels could be discerned in the deep, dark mud, though Jack took off one of the oil lamps and flashed it across the road.

”Golly!” exclaimed Ed, in earnest despair.