“Oh,” answered Bess, intelligently. “That’s a good idea. Just think how much money we could save on ice if we had a spring house.”
“Maybe if we had one, you would be able to cool off sometimes,” remarked her sister teasingly. “You look as if you needed a dip this very minute.”
The red cheeks of Bess certainly did look overheated, and the way she plied her handkerchief betrayed her discomfort.
“An internal dip will do nicely, thank you,” answered the girl. “I don’t see that I am any warmer than the rest of you.”
“Here comes a girl from the house,” said Cora, as down the path a girl, in generous sunbonnet, and overgenerous apron, was seen to approach.
“Do they wear their sunbonnets to bed?” asked Belle. “I am sure there is no sun now.”
“Father will be down in a minute with the team,” called out the girl, much to the surprise of the motor girls.
“Mercy!” exclaimed Belle, “are we going to be arrested?”
“I think not,” replied Cora; “however, we are trespassing, though I did think farmer folks very – liberal, especially with their spring water.”
“The girl is smiling like a ‘basket of chips,’” said Bess, almost in a whisper. “It is not likely that she is angry with us at all.”
“Did you get a nice drink?” asked the strange girl, with unmistakable friendliness.
“Oh, yes, thank you very much,” spoke up Cora, “but I am afraid we are trespassing.”
“Not at all,” said the girl. “My name is Hope – Hope Stevens,” she said, in the most delightfully simple manner. “I always like to introduce myself – ’specially to young girls.”
“We are very glad to know you, Hope,” said Cora. “This is Miss Bess Robinson, this Miss Belle Robinson, and I am Cora Kimball.”
“Oh, I know who you are now,” declared Hope. “They call you the Motor Girls.”
“I am afraid they do,” agreed Bess. “But then we are just plain girls as well – our motors do not make us – we try to make them – go!”
“That is what father said when he saw you come over yonder hill, when he left the field to get the team. Do you know he makes more money hauling folks with automobiles up this hill, than he does on the farm? He always stops his work and gets the team ready when he sees an auto stuck out here.”
“Oh, that is what he intended to do,” said Cora. “Well, it was very good of him to be so prompt, but we are always able to make our own hills – I don’t really think we will need him.”
“Lots of folks think that way,” said Hope. “But, of course, you ought to know – best. Do you think you can get up the hill?”
“Yes. You see these are practically new machines,” explained Cora, “and we have been taught to run them carefully.”
“Pa says that girls are more careful than men,” added Hope, and Belle kept her eyes on the pretty face beneath the bonnet. She thought she had never seen such dimples, and such splendidly marked brows.
“There comes pa now,” went on the girl. “He will be – ”
“Disappointed, of course. It was too bad for him to leave the fields,” said Cora.
“Well, the rest won’t hurt his poor back,” ventured Hope. “Pa works harder than any of the hired men, and these are very bad hills to farm.”
“Are you ready, young ladies?” called the man from the road, as he backed the sturdy team of horses up close to the Whirlwind. “I guess this little machine can hitch behind t’other.”
“Really, we do not think we will need any help,” said Cora, rather confused. “We always take hills without trouble.”
“Never been up this one though,” declared the farmer, with a shake of his broad-brimmed hat. “I reckon you’ll not be able to fly over the top.”
“It’s awfully good of you,” put in Bess. “But suppose we try? You see we do not want to break our records.”
“Plucky, all right,” the man commented. “Well, go ahead, and I’ll stop to chat with Hope. If you get stuck just give me five quick toots, and I’ll be there.”
The girls thanked him profusely, and after cranking up both the Flyaway and the Whirlwind, said good-bye to Hope and her father, and started off, both machines on low gear.
“It is steep,” remarked Belle to Bess. “Perhaps it would have been well to have taken his offer.”
“All right?” asked Cora from ahead, as she looked back.
“Thus far,” replied Bess, clutching the wheel with nervous energy, and slightly retarding the spark.
Suddenly the Whirlwind stopped – but only for an instant, for directly the big four-cylinder car began to back down the steep grade, while Bess and Belle shouted in terror for Cora to turn into the gutter!
Not knowing how deep and dangerous this gutter was, Cora directed the runaway machine well into the side, vainly trying to make the brakes hold.
The next moment there was a crash!
The Whirlwind, with Cora in the car, was ditched – turned over on its side!
Bess tooted the horn of the Flyaway frantically!
Then she was able to bring her car to a standstill, and run to Cora’s assistance.
CHAPTER VI – CORA’S QUEER PLIGHT
Springing to the back of one of the big field horses, Farmer Stevens responded to the frantic summons of the auto horn, and started with the pair up the hill to the assistance of Cora, and the righting of her car, that almost swung between the narrow ledge of land, and the great gulf of mountainous space that lay just beneath the banked up highway.
“Oh, I am so afraid that Cora is hurt,” wailed Belle. “We can’t see her, and she must have been tossed over into the tonneau of the car.”
“She was on the right hand forward seat,” gasped Bess, as both girls ran along to the spot where the Whirlwind was ditched, “but she may have sprung out to avoid being thrown down the gully.”
Although Bess was but a short distance behind Cora when the latter’s car met with the mishap, it now seemed a long space of roadway that lay between them. Of course Bess had to bring her car to a safe place, at the side of the thoroughfare, and Belle had to help some, so that it had taken a minute or two to do this, before they could run to Cora. In the meantime Mr. Stevens came along with his horses, and Hope, signalled by the tooting of the horn of the Flyaway, had called two of his hired men from the fields, so that the ditched auto and the danger to its driver met with ready assistance.
“Oh, if Cora should be – ” Then Belle checked herself. She had an unfortunate habit of predicting trouble.
Mr. Stevens left his horses by the rail fence through which the Whirlwind had passed without hesitation, and Bess was beside him just as he reached the big car.
“Oh, where is she!” wailed the girl, unable longer to restrain her fears.
There was the car, partly overturned but seemingly not damaged. Neither within nor without was there a sign of Cora!
“She must have been thrown down the embankment,” said the man anxiously. “She surely is not with the machine.”
Bess now joined Belle and ran to the edge of the cliff. Almost afraid to look, they peered over the brink.
“Where can she be?” breathed Belle, her