The Meadow Brook Girls Across Country Part 12

The voices of their companions in the camp no longer reached them. The two girls were too far away to hear now, even had the car not been making such a din.

The two men were making for the roadside fence, a board structure, which in the haze of the damp night, the girls did not see. They had forgotten that the fence was there.

All at once the men reached the fence. Grasping the top board they flung themselves over, landing heavily on the ground on the other side.

"Look out!" cried Harriet warningly.

"Hold fast!" yelled Jane.

Cras.h.!.+

The car struck the fence with a mighty crash accompanied by the sound of splintering woodwork. The headlights went out, and Jane brought her car to a stop in the midst of the wreck at the roadside.

CHAPTER VIII-CAUGHT IN A MORa.s.s

"Well, here we are," announced Crazy Jane calmly.

"Oh, see those fellows run!" cried Harriet, gaspingly. "There they go!"

she cried, in almost hysterical amus.e.m.e.nt, after she had picked herself up from the bottom of the car, where the collision had hurled her.

"I've a good notion to send the car straight through the fence, and chase that pair of skulkers out of the state!" Jane McCarthy proposed vindictively.

"Don't you try to do it," protested Harriet, now sobered by the realization of how reckless her companion might easily become. "Jane, _some day_ you'll really hit some one-that would be awful!"

"But I didn't half frighten that pair of rascals," returned Jane.

"If the men weren't frightened, then they'll never know fear," insisted Harriet Burrell. "How badly is the car damaged?"

"A blow on the nose, but the nose is not even out of joint," Jane answered coolly.

"Then let us get back to Miss Elting. How she'll scold!"

Miss Elting did scold when they reached camp with the car. It is to be feared, however, that Jane heard but little of the rebuke, for she was busy examining the damage done to her beloved car. She found that she could put the lamps in condition again. The guard rod in front of the radiator was also injured. Jane decided that this could be easily fixed.

"Girls, girls! What do you mean by such actions. Jane, I am amazed at you. Harriet, how could you?" Miss Elting rebuked them roundly.

"I-I guess it was impulse," answered Harriet, her face crimsoning under the reproachful words of the guardian. "Please don't scold us. We drove the men off. They will not trouble us again, I am quite sure."

"But they might have been run down, girls."

"Served them right if they had, bad luck to them!" retorted Jane mischievously. "However, 'all's well that ends well.' I'm for bed. What do you say?"

"Thay, why didn't you take me along?" demanded Tommy.

"It was quite bad enough without your a.s.sistance," replied the guardian.

"Yes, we had better retire at once. Do you wish to put up your burglar alarm again, Harriet?"

"I do not think it will be necessary. The men won't prowl about the camp again to-night."

"No, they won't," agreed Jane, laughing uproariously. "They're running yet and they'll be running as long as their wind holds out. I wonder where they left the bear? Wouldn't it be fun if we could find the bear and let him loose?"

"Oh-h-h!" cried Margery. "How can you talk so, Jane?"

"Most certainly not," rebuked Miss Elting. "You have done quite enough as it is, without turning a bear loose on the community. You had better all go back to bed. What did you do to your car, Jane?"

"b.u.mped its nose, that's all. My only regret is that I didn't b.u.mp it against one of the Italians. I shouldn't have minded giving the bear a smash, too. Good night. Sweet dreams, darlin's!" Jane flounced into the tent and throwing off her bathrobe tumbled into bed, where she was soon sound asleep. The others did not quiet down quite so quickly. Harriet, especially, lay thinking over the experiences of the evening, and each time the thought of the pursuit of the Italians by Crazy Jane and her motor car occurred to her, Harriet would laugh softly to herself. She finally laughed herself to sleep, to be awakened in what seemed but a few moments later, by the blowing of a fish horn at the lips of Crazy Jane McCarthy. Day had dawned. The sun was just peeping over the eastern hills, the campfire was blazing and Miss Elting was getting breakfast.

Harriet quickly drew on her bathing suit, then, running out of the tent, plunged into the pond, uttering a little scream as the cold water enveloped her. None of the others had the courage to take a cold plunge that morning, as the air was rather cool. As for Harriet, she remained in the pond until Miss Elting insisted that she come ash.o.r.e.

Camp was struck immediately after breakfast as the girls wished to make as much progress on their journey in the cool of the morning as possible. They struck camp with the skill of veterans, and within half an hour from the time they began the operation, everything was packed and stowed in the car.

"Now, don't you girls try to play me any more tricks to-day. I've got the food. If you don't find Jane, you get no supper. Understand?"

laughed Jane.

"I've got thome bithcuit in my pack," piped Tommy.

"She won't have them for long," laughed Margery. "Tommy will have eaten the biscuits before she has gone a mile."

"Well, I don't eat tho much that I get fat," protested Tommy. "I gueth I know when to thtop."

Miss Elting was giving Jane final directions as to when and where to look for them, after which the four girls and their guardian, with their packs slung over their backs, stout sticks in their hands to a.s.sist them over rough places and also to frighten away troublesome dogs, started out on their journey of ten miles or more. They crossed the road, traveled up a hill and headed straight across country. The unmarked trail was rough and following it fatigued them considerably during the first two miles of their journey.

Shortly after eleven o'clock they came in sight of a remote farm house tucked away in a valley. Miss Elting decided to call there to get some milk. The woman of the house at first regarded them with suspicion, but she soon thawed under Miss Elting's gentle voice and winning smile.

The milk had not been skimmed. All the old milk had been churned that day. There was nothing left but b.u.t.termilk, the woman told them.

"b.u.t.termilk!" cried the girls in chorus.

"I jutht love b.u.t.termilk!" declared Tommy. "Do you have b.u.t.termilk cowth? Ithn't that fine? I'm going to make my father buy me a b.u.t.termilk cow."

"Well, I was going to feed that b.u.t.termilk to the hogs, but seeing as you want it I suppose you may have it," decided the woman with some reluctance. "Do you like it cold?"

The party answered in the affirmative. The housewife lowered a pail of b.u.t.termilk into the well to cool, the party sitting down under an apple tree in the yard to rest themselves in the meantime. Margery lay down and went to sleep. Tommy amused herself by tickling Buster's ear with a long, dead stalk of timothy gra.s.s. Margery in her sleep thought it a fly. She fought the fly for some time, then finally opening her eyes, she caught Tommy red handed. Tommy fled into the farm house, where she pretended to be much interested in the housewife's work. She soon won her way into the good graces of the woman, and when, finally, the little lisping girl emerged from the house she was carrying a tin tray of food.

"Jutht thee what I've got," she cried. "It taketh Tommy Thompthon to get thingth to eat."

There were sandwiches, ginger cookies-great fat brown fellows-and a large dish of apple sauce.

"Oh, girls!" cried Margery her eyes glistening at the prospect of a feast. "I could die eating that food."

"Tommy, did you beg for this?" demanded the guardian.

"I gueth not. I jutht athked for it," returned Tommy calmly. "When you want thomething you want, jutht athk for it, and if you don't get it you haven't wasted anything but your breath."

"Madam, we are very grateful to you for this kindness, and will pay you before leaving," called Miss Elting to the housewife, who came out at this juncture to draw up the bucket of b.u.t.termilk from the cool depths of the well.