The Motor Girls in the Mountains: or, The Gypsy Girl's Secret

“That’s pretty good!” remarked Paul.

“Rich!” assented Walter.

“Just as if we hadn’t been breaking speed laws all day long in order to overtake you,” mourned Jack.

“What’s the use of living when you’re so misunderstood?” groaned Walter.

“After all the ice-creams and sodas we’ve blown in on these girls, too!” wailed Paul.

“Let’s find a hole somewhere and crawl away and die,” suggested Jack.

“It seems to me that the shoe’s on the other foot anyway,” said Walter, becoming accuser in his turn. “It’s you who didn’t want us. Who was it just now that was trying to run away from us?”

“Run away from you?” repeated Cora innocently. “What do you mean by that?”

“You know perfectly well, you little minx,” said her brother with mock sternness. “There we were, waving handkerchiefs at you and hustling the old machine along to beat the band. I know you saw us, for one of you was looking back.”

“I did see some one waving a handkerchief,” admitted Belle. “But it looked as though some ill-bred person was trying to flirt with us, and of course we didn’t pay the least attention.”

“No,” said Bess primly, “we’d die before we’d flirt.”

“If we’d wanted to flirt we had a perfectly good chance to-day while we were eating lunch,” said Cora. “He had a perfectly lovely necktie, too, a good deal brighter than any of yours.”

Jack threw up his hands with a gesture of despair.

“No use, fellows!” he exclaimed. “You can’t pin them down to anything.”

“But what did you have to wave your handkerchief for anyway to make us stop?” asked Cora demurely. “All you had to do was to put on more speed and catch up to us. That car of yours is so fast, you know. At least that’s what you’ve always said.”

The boys looked at each other a little disconcertedly.

“W-well,” stammered Jack, “the oil – the sparking wasn’t working just right – ”

“Tell the truth, Jack,” spoke up Walter, with a fine assumption of candor. “The real reason, girls, was that we were afraid of bumping into you – ”

“And we didn’t want to spill you all over the road,” finished Paul.

A groan went up from the girls.

“Oh, Ananias!” exclaimed Bess.

“Ananiases, you mean,” corrected her sister. “One’s just as bad as the others. They all hang together.”

“We’re like Ben Franklin when he signed the Declaration of Independence,” laughed Paul. “He said they’d all have to hang together or they’d hang separately.”

“I’ll admit that you have a good car, sis,” said Jack.

“And if that isn’t enough to take us back into favor, we’ll do anything else you say,” said Walter, wringing his hands in pretended agitation.

“We’ll put on sackcloth and ashes, jump through a hoop, roll over and play dead,” chimed in Paul. “No one has anything on us when it comes to humility.”

“It almost affects me to tears,” said Belle, pretending to reach for her handkerchief.

“They say cruel and unusual punishments are prohibited by the Constitution,” laughed Cora, “so we won’t deprive you of the refining influence of our society. Heaven knows you need it badly enough. We’ll let you trail along with us if you’ll promise to be very, very good.”

“We will,” promised Jack.

“There’s one thing yet that needs to be explained, fellows,” remarked Walter, as they climbed into their automobile. “What about that fellow with the iridescent necktie? I feel the demon of jealousy gnawing at my vitals.”

“Come, girls, ’fess up,” admonished Jack.

“He was just charming,” said Cora promptly.

“Perfectly lovely,” agreed Belle.

“Such soulful eyes!” exclaimed Bess languishingly.

“That I should ever have lived to hear this!” groaned Walter.

“I guess our cake is dough,” said Paul.

“Eftsoon and gadzooks!” cried Jack, striking an attitude, “lead me to him, and sooth it shall go hard with me if my trusty sword drink not the caitiff’s blood.”

“I guess you don’t need to go as far as that,” laughed Cora. “Leave him alone and the police will take care of him.”

“A-ha, a criminal!” cried Walter.

“That only makes him the more romantic,” declared Paul.

“It doesn’t help our case one bit,” said Jack. “Haven’t you heard of how women will deck a murderer’s cell with flowers?”

“I don’t think he’d have the nerve to be a murderer,” remarked Belle. “His specialty is stealing purses.”

And while the boys listened intently and threw in occasional indignant exclamations, the girls told of the young man’s attempt to scrape acquaintance, and of how later he had almost succeeded in getting possession of Cora’s purse.

“The cur!” growled Jack. “I wish I’d happened along when he was trying to get fresh!”

“You helped me out just the same, even if you weren’t there,” replied Cora. “You ought to have seen how he made tracks for his buggy when I said my brother would be along shortly.”

“You see,” said Jack, throwing out his chest, “how the terror of my name has preceded me.”

“It’s comforting anyway,” chimed in Walter. “It proves that we men are good for something.”

“And that the girls ought to have us with them all the time as trusty knights and vassals,” added Paul.

“You’re too ready to jump to conclusions,” rebuked Cora. “But now we’d better be hurrying along. It’s getting towards dark, and we’ll have all we can do to get to Aunt Margaret’s in time for dinner.”

“Dinner!” exclaimed Jack. “Where have I heard that word before? Lead me to it!”