The Motor Girls on the Coast: or, The Waif From the Sea

“I guess the girls will be too tired,” returned Walter. “We might take in a show, however. That would be restful.”

“Not any moving pictures!” exclaimed Norton, hastily. “I’m dead sick of them.”

“So am I. There are a couple of good theatres in town, I think. However, we’ll leave it to the girls.”

“Did you see anything of Jack?” asked Cora, anxiously, as the two young men came in. There was a worried look in her eyes.

“No, he hasn’t come yet,” answered Walter. “But it’s early yet. Dinner won’t be served for an hour, the clerk told me. Say, you girls look all right!” and there was genuine admiration in his eyes.

“Why shouldn’t we?” asked Eline. She had put on a fawn-colored dress that set off her complexion wonderfully well. Cora had put on her new brown, while Belle in blue and Bess in mauve added to the charm. The girls had freshened their complexion with cold cream and a thorough rinsing, and all traces of the rather dusty trip had been removed.

“It’s up to us for our glad rags,” said Norton. “Come on, Walter. There’s no use letting them carry off all the honors,” and he started for the elevator.

“I wish you’d give just a look, and see if Jack isn’t coming,” went on Cora. “I’m really a little worried. He may have had an accident.”

“Now don’t you go to worrying,” counseled Walter, in his best brotherly manner. “Jack and Ed can take care of themselves, all right.”

“No, don’t worry,” went on Mrs. Fordam. “It will spoil your pleasure, Cora.”

“But I just can’t help it. Come on, girls, we’ll get our wraps and go outside. I simply can’t sit still.”

“No, we had plenty of sitting all day,” admitted Bess. “I believe it would be nice to walk up and down out in front for a change. It’s rather stuffy in here,” and she glanced about a typical hotel parlor.

“All right, go ahead and we’ll be with you in a little while,” directed Walter, he and Norton going to their rooms while the girls and Mrs. Fordam went outside.

All the injunctions of her companions not to worry did not drive anxiety from Cora. Time and again she glanced down the road her brother must come, but the Get There was not living up to its name.

Dusk came, but no Jack. The promise of good appetites for the dinner was not carried out, for Cora’s worry affected all of them more or less. And it began to look as if something really had happened.

“I simply must do something!” Cora exclaimed after dinner. “I’m going to see if I can’t telephone to some one along the road, and ask if there has been an accident.”

They tried to persuade her not to, but she insisted and started toward the booth.

CHAPTER VIII

THE GIRL

Jack and Ed, standing near the machine, under the sign post, peered at the advancing figure of the girl. She had stopped short–stopped rather timidly, it seemed, and she now stood there silent, apparently waiting for the boys to say something.

“It’s a girl, sure enough,” said Ed, in a low voice. “Out alone, too.”

Jack, who never hesitated long at doing anything, resolved to at once plunge into the midst of this new problem.

“Excuse me,” he said, taking off his cap, and he knew she could see him, for they were all in the glare of the auto’s lamps now, “excuse me, but can you tell us if there is any shorter way to get to Fairport than by going back? We are lost, it seems.”

“So–so am I!” faltered the girl.

“What?” exclaimed Ed.

“That is–well, I’m not exactly lost,” and Jack could see her smile faintly. Yet behind the smile there seemed to be sorrow, and it was evident, even in the difficult light of the gas lamps, that she had been crying.

“You’re lost–but not exactly lost,” remarked Ed, with a laugh. “That’s–er–rather odd; isn’t it?” He was anxious to put the girl at her ease. Clearly a strange young girl–and pretty, too, as the boys could see–would need to be put at her ease when alone, after dark, on a country road.

“I–I guess it is,” she admitted, and Jack made a mental note that he liked her voice. Quite discriminating in regard to voices Jack was getting–at least in his own estimation.

“Then you can’t help us much, I’m afraid,” went on Ed. “If you’re a stranger around here – ”

“Oh, yes, I’m a stranger–quite a stranger. I don’t know a soul!”

She said it so quickly–bringing out the words so promptly after Ed’s suggestion, that it almost seemed as though she had caught at a straw thrown in her way by a chance wind. Why did she want to make it appear that she was a stranger? And that she did want to give that impression–rightly or wrongly–was very evident to both young men.

“Then we are both–I mean all three–lost,” spoke Jack, good-naturedly. “I guess there’s no help for it, Ed. We’ll have to go back the way we came until we strike the road to Fairport.”

“I suppose so. But it will bring us in pretty late.”

“No help for it. What is to be–has to be. Cora will worry–she has that habit lately.”

“Naturally. Well, maybe we can get to a telephone somewhere, and let them know.”

“You could do that!” exclaimed the girl, impulsively. “I know what it is to worry. I saw a telephone not more than a mile back. I mean,” she explained with a smile, “I saw a place where there was a telephone pay station sign. It was in a little country store, where I stopped to–to – ”

She hesitated and her voice faltered.

“Look here!” exclaimed Jack. “Perhaps we can help you! Are you going anywhere that we can give you a lift? We’re bound to be late anyhow, and a little more time won’t matter. You see my sister and some friends–other girls and boys–are out on a trip. We are going to Sandy Point Cove, and are taking it easy on the way. My machine developed tire trouble a while ago–quite a while it is now,” he said ruefully, “and the others went on. I thought I could get up to them, but I took the wrong road and–well, here we are. Now if we can give you a ride, why, we’ll be glad to. Ed can sit on the run-board, and you – ”

“Oh, I couldn’t trouble you!” the girl exclaimed. “I–I am going – ”

She stopped rather abruptly and Jack and Ed each confessed to the other, later, that they were mortally afraid she was going to cry.

“And if she had,” said Jack, “I’d have been up in the air for fair!”

“Same here!” admitted Ed.

But she did not cry. She conquered the inclination, and went on.

“I mean that I don’t know exactly where I am going,” the girl said. “It isn’t important, anyhow. It doesn’t much matter where I stop.” There was a pathetic, hopeless note in her voice now.

Again Jack took a sudden resolve.

“Look here!” he exclaimed, “I’ve got a sister, and Ed here, and I, have a lot of girl friends. We wouldn’t want them to be out alone at night on a country road. So if you’ll excuse us, I think it would be better if we could take you to some of your friends. We won’t mind in the least, going out of our way to do it, either.”

“Of course not!” put in Ed.

“But I–I – ” she seemed struggling with some emotion. “I love to be in the country!” she said suddenly–as though she had made up her mind to rush through some explanation of her plight “I take long walks often. I think I walked too far to-day. I–I expected to reach Hayden before dark, but I stayed too long in a pretty little wood. I–am going to stop at the Young Women’s Christian Association in Hayden. But that’s only a mile further, and I can be there before it’s very much darker.”

“If it can get any darker than this, I’d like to see it,” remarked Ed, staring at the blackness which surrounded them.

“If it’s only a mile or so farther then we’re going to take you there!” exclaimed Jack. “We’re bound to be late anyhow, and we might as well be killed for a sheep as a lamb. Ed, it’s you for the run-board.”