The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point Part 8

"So much the worse for it," retorted Betty gayly. "You keep your eye on Mollie, Gracie dear, and tell me whether she's gaining--that's a good girl."

"If you think I'm going to help you break our necks--" Grace sputtered, but Betty cut her short.

"Well, if you don't I will have to look for myself," she said, adding maliciously: "And then we will have a smash-up!"

Grace groaned and looked behind her.

"They're gaining," she cried, and then all at once the spirit of the thing caught her--the contest of speed was getting into her blood. "Oh, Betty, don't let 'em," she almost screamed, above the noise of the motor and the rus.h.i.+ng wind. "They're not more than fifty feet behind now!"

Betty gave her a swift look, smiled to herself, and once more fixed her dancing eyes on the road ahead.

"All right," she crowed. "Just watch me run away from them. I wouldn't have had the heart," she added with a chuckle, "if Mollie hadn't brought it all on herself."

"But they're still gaining," insisted Grace nervously, trying to look behind, ahead, keep her seat, hat, and dignity all at the same time.

"Look, Betty, they're only about thirty feet behind!"

"That's near enough," Betty decided, and leaning over suddenly, did something to the car that Grace never quite understood. Anyway, it had the desired effect. The little racer fairly leapt forward and, like a horse that has been given his head for the first time, took the bit between its teeth and bolted.

Behind them Mollie looked her amazement. She was getting every bit of speed out of her machine of which it was capable, and then, just as victory was within sight, Betty was doing an inconceivable, unbelievable thing--she was winning the race!

Mrs. Ford and Amy had been enjoying the race tremendously, but now they leaned forward in surprise.

"Goodness, she's beating us," cried Amy.

"No!" snapped Mollie sarcastically. "Who would have supposed it?"

"Perhaps it is because Betty's car is so much lighter," suggested Mrs.

Ford consolingly. "We have all the luggage and wraps, too."

"Oh, that wouldn't make so much difference," denied Mollie, who was too good a sportsman to make excuses for herself. "Betty's racer has the speed, that's all."

"Well, they're just about out of sight now," said Amy, leaning back resignedly. "I only hope Betty doesn't run into anything and have a smash-up. She hasn't driven a car as much as you, Mollie."

"Oh, Betty'll take care of herself," said Mollie, though she was slightly mollified by this tribute to her superior experience, if not superior speed. "I guess," she added, after a moment's reflection, "I'd better sell this old car and get a racer too."

Mrs. Ford laughed softly, the first time she had laughed or thought of laughing since receiving the news of Will's being wounded.

"Don't go back on an old friend for its first offence, Mollie," she chided, adding diplomatically: "A racing car is just fine for speed, but I think your automobile is much more sociable and comfy."

"Well, I'm glad there's something nice about it," said Mollie, for she had not yet recovered from her surprise and chagrin. "I hope," she added, as a sudden thought struck her, "that Betty doesn't get too far ahead. I don't know this part of the country very well and Betty has the map."

"That will be the next thing," said Amy, with a sigh, and Mollie looked at her sharply.

"What?" she demanded.

"Why, that we'll get lost," Amy explained. "Wasn't that what you meant?"

"Oh, I hope not," said Mrs. Ford, a little anxiously. "Perhaps we'll be able to see them when we round this curve, Mollie."

But they rounded several curves, and still no sign of Betty's car. Then happened what Mollie had secretly been fearing would happen. They came to a crossroads and a sudden stop at one and the same moment.

"Now, what?" queried Amy, in the tone of resignation that never failed to rub Mollie the wrong way. "Something the matter with the engine?"

"No, the engine's all right," snapped Mollie, adding, irritably: "But everything else is all wrong."

"What, for instance?" queried Mrs. Ford soothingly. She knew that the first defeat Mollie had ever experienced would be bound to rankle and was prepared to make allowances. "If the engine is all right, why don't we go on?"

"Which way?" queried Mollie, spreading out her arms with a hopeless gesture. "There are two roads, one looks as good as the other, and we haven't the slightest idea in the world which to take."

"Oh!" gasped Amy.

Mrs. Ford gave a low whistle as she saw the fix they were in.

"Then if Betty doesn't realize our predicament and come back pretty soon, we'll either have to stay here indefinitely, or go back the way we came, is that it?"

"Yes," nodded Mollie, adding truthfully and more than a little anxiously: "Only I'm not quite sure I know just how we came. As I said, this is unfamiliar country to me."

Amy groaned.

"Then we shall be lost for fair," she said. "Oh, why did Betty do such a foolish thing?"

Mollie was about to retort when a cloud of dust in the distance and a faint chug-chug made her swallow her words.

"What's that?" she cried. "It sounds like a motor. I wonder--"

"Yes, it is!" cried Amy, straining her eyes to see through the cloud of dust. "It's only a little car, and it's coming at about ninety miles an hour."

At this reference to Betty's speed, Mollie winced a little but gave a relieved sigh nevertheless. For by this time the car was near enough to be identified beyond doubt. It was a racer, and there was a girl at the wheel.

A few moments later Betty herself, with a grin, hailed them.

"h.e.l.lo," she cried, adding as the car slowed to a standstill: "This time the joke's on us. We were so busy running away from you that we took the wrong road. This one ends about two miles up in somebody's farm."

"It's lucky something stopped you," said Mollie dryly, adding as she c.o.c.ked one eye at the sun: "Well, let's be getting along. We'll have to hurry and make up for lost time."

"Do you still want to get ahead of us?" asked Betty, as a moment later she swung her car into the right road. "Because if you do--"

"Go on," cried Mollie, exasperated, yet beginning to laugh, for after all Mollie was a good loser. "Some way or other I'll get even with you, Betty Nelson. Meanwhile hustle!"

And Betty hustled, with Mollie keeping just far enough behind to avoid the cloud of dust the little car threw up. For an hour more the motors purred rhythmically, eating up mile after mile, until finally the girls were compelled by ravenous and healthy appet.i.tes to stop for lunch.

They had brought two big hampers, packed full with sandwiches, fruit and cake and also something to drink, and after the long ride in the open the very thought of these delicacies brought, as Grace said, "the tears of longing to their eyes."

As Mrs. Ford handed one of the baskets over the seat to Mollie in front, Betty and Grace tumbled out of their car and came running toward them.

"Are you going to get out and eat, in romantic fas.h.i.+on, by the wayside?"

queried Grace, eyeing a pile of sandwiches hungrily. "Or are you going to sit in state in the car and let us occupy the running board?"

"We'll give you one of the hampers," offered Mrs. Ford, but Mollie gasped in dismay.