The Motor Girls at Lookout Beach; Or, In Quest of the Runaways

by Margaret Penrose

  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 powerand coasting with the emergency brake partly on, for he found he wascovering a hill too quickly. "I guess we can run alongside here. It'sa good enough road."

  Jack brought the _Get There_ in line with the other runabout. "My, butthat shower is coming up quickly. I'll bet the girls are about scaredto death," he said. "Cora isn't particularly afraid of thundershowers, 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 putup 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 couldfind, was an old roadhouse over on a back lane."

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

  For a mile or so the runabouts went along, "between the flashes," asEd 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 overtakethe girls now. I don't feel like risking it in this downpour. Thatfellow from the garage may not know more than he has to, and Ipromised 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 someseconds.

  "But where could they have gone to?" questioned Jack, as theirstrained ears failed to catch the familiar sound of a machine that hadbeen running on ahead.

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

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

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

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

  But although the other cars must have passed over that placesomewhere, and not more than half an hour before, not a mark of theheavy wheels could be discerned in the deep, dark mud, though Jacktook off one of the oil lamps and flashed it across the road.

  "Golly!" exclaimed Ed, in earnest despair.

  "Which way?" asked Walter, deferring now to the much-alarmed brotherof Cora Kimball.

  "I wish I knew," replied he, with a sigh.

  "Suppose we make straight for the Wayside?" suggested Ed. "They mayhave known of the roadhouse."

  "How far to Wayside?" asked Jack.

  "Five miles from this turn. See, there it is on the signpost," and heflashed his lamp on the board that marked the fork in the road.

  "Then we had better put on speed and make that," declared Jack, "andif we do not find them there, we will have to turn back, that's all."

  "Didn't Cora have any idea you were going to follow?" asked Walter, ashe got back in his car and then shot ahead close to the already moving_Get There_.

  "Not the least," replied Jack. "That comes of our foolish way of doingschool-boy tricks. It seems to me the joke is turned on us this time."

  "Hope it is," declared Walter warmly. "I, for one, am now quitewilling to go in the kindergarten, if that's all we have to do to makeamends."

  "I can't see where we missed them," almost shouted Jack, for the noiseof the thunder and rain added to the distance of sound between thecars.

  "Right at the spot where you told me to slow up," answered Walter. "Iheard them then, but not after that."

  Each driver now put on all possible speed. It was a perilous ride. Themud splashed up in the very faces of the young men, the lights thatflashed on the road were misleading, because of the almost continuousflashes of lightning, and the danger of "skidding" increased withevery mile of the race.

  "Who were in the hired car?" called Walter.

  "Mrs. Robinson and her guest from the West, and the driver. I wish nowI had gone over and fixed it, so that they had the right man at thewheel," yelled Jack. "I don't know a thing about this fellow."

  "What's his name?" asked Ed.

  "Bindle or something like that," was Jack's answer.

  Ed gave Walter a tug at the sleeve. "Don't say anything to Jack," hesaid, quietly, "but that's the very fellow who drove the Wakleys whenthey went over into the ditch."

  The shrill whistle of a train startled them.

  "Any other danger likely to crop up?" asked Jack. "This will surelygive the girls all the experience they want, I'm afraid!"

  But a few more miles and they must reach the inn.

  If only they would find the party there safe and sound!

  None of the boys was what might be called nervous, but when it came topossible danger for the motor girls--Jack's sister, his friends and hischum's friends--somehow a fear seized each of the three young men; afear to which they had thought themselves almost immune.

  "There's the lights from the Wayside," announced Jack, a little later,and then they turned their cars into the broad, private roadway.

  Jack was first to reach the hotel office, but Ed and Walter werealmost at his heels.

  "Has a party of automobile folks come in here since eight o'clock?" heasked of the man at the desk.

  "Yes," replied the clerk, turning over one page of the big book.

  The boys' hearts gave a sort of jerk--it must be their girls, ofcourse.

  "Have they registered?" went on Jack. "Were there three cars, and anumber of girls?"

  The man looked down the list of names.

  "Here they are," he said, indicating some fresh writing on the page.

  Jack scanned it eagerly.

  Then he looked at Ed and Walter.

  "Not them!" he almost gasped. "We have got to turn back!"

  "Make sure they have not come in, and are on some porch," said Ed."They may not have had a chance to get into the office."

  But all inquiries failed to give any clue to the lost party, and,without waiting for any refreshments, the almost exhausted young mencranked up their muddy cars, and started off again over the very roadthey had just succeeded in safely covering.

  "We've got to have more spunk if we intend to find them," said Ed, forJack seemed too overcome to speak. "Why, they may be snug by somefarm-house fire, actually enjoying the situation."

  "I hope so," faltered Jack. "But next time I'll _go along_--not afterthem," and he threw in high gear, advanced the spark and then theyfairly flew over the turnpike, back to the fork that must have hiddenthe secret of the turn in the road.