Farmer Stevens knew every inch of that hill. He often had to rescue from its uncertainties either a sheep or a young cow. He also knew that precisely where the machine was ditched, the hill shelved to a perfectly straight bank, so that instead of an incline the wall of earth actually seemed to run under the surface.
“If she went over there,” he told himself, “she never stopped until – she landed.”
“Oh, Cora!” called the girls again, “can’t you tell us where you are?”
“Look out there, young ladies,” cautioned Mr. Stevens, “or you may go down – double quick!”
Hope was scaling the rocks like a wild creature. The two hired men were almost jumping from cliff to cliff making straight for the clump of hemlock trees at the very edge of the stream, that, in its quiet way, defied the great hill above it.
“Here she is!” called Hope. “Here in the – bed of hemlock!”
To Bess and Belle, not acquainted with the peculiarities of the flat-branched evergreen, finding Cora in “a bed of hemlock” was rather a startling discovery, but to Hope – what nest could have been safer! Cora had fallen over the cliff into the soft branches of a tree that jutted out from the shelving earth.
“Are you hurt?” asked the girl from the farm, looking up into the branch of the big green tree.
“I don’t know – I don’t think so, but I feel queer. I must get down,” Cora managed to say.
By this time the others had reached the spot. Bess and Belle were almost hysterical lest Cora should lose her hold and again fall to a more dangerous landing. But the hired men stationed themselves under the tree, and, with their strong arms netted beneath the giant evergreen, they waited for Mr. Stevens to give an order.
“All ready?” asked Mr. Stevens.
“Yes, sir,” replied the men.
“Young lady, can you get free of the branches?” he called to Cora.
“I am directly over a great hole,” she answered timidly, “and I am afraid I cannot hold on another minute.”
“Then drop,” said the farmer. “We will catch you. Don’t be afraid. You can’t escape the arms of Sam and Frank!”
“Oh, if she should go to the bottom,” wailed Belle, covering her face with her trembling hands and uttering sighs and sobs. Bess was more courageous, but equally frightened.
Sam and Frank stood like human statues. Clasped hand to wrist, their sunburned arms looked strong and secure.
Presently there was a fluttering in the leaves – a slide through the branches and Cora dropped – down on the human net of arms, safe, and seemingly sound, but too weak to recover herself at once from the strange position.
Gently as could a woman, these farm hands lowered their burden to the soft bed of moss at their feet. Belle and Bess leaned over the quiet form, while Hope hurried to the stream below for some water, which she quickly brought in the strong cup improvised from her stiffened sunbonnet.
“This is spring water,” she said. “Swallow a few mouthsfull.”
Cora opened her lips and sipped from the strange cup. Then she turned and tried to rise, growing stronger each instant, and determined to “pull herself together.”
“Wasn’t it silly?” she asked, finally.
“Wasn’t it awful! Are you much hurt?” inquired Belle, fanning Cora with her motor hood.
“Not a bit – that I can tell,” she answered. “That natural – hammock – was a miracle.”
She attempted to rise, but fell back rather suddenly.
“I’ve got a twist somewhere,” she said. “I think my shoulder is sprained.”
Without waiting to be asked to do so Frank, the younger of the farm hands, put his arm about Cora’s waist, and brought her to her feet.
“Oh, thank you,” she stammered rather shyly. “I am sure you have helped me wonderfully. I don’t know how to thank you – all.”
“You can stand, eh?” asked Mr. Stevens, satisfaction showing in his voice, and ruddy face.
“I suppose you feel – that I should have taken your offer for the horses?” she remarked with confusion.
“Well, there is always a first time,” he replied, “but since you are no worse off you must not complain. Guess the boys had better lift you to the road. Then we will see if you can run your car.”
Again, in that straightforward way, peculiar to those who know when they’re right and then go ahead, the “boys” simply picked Cora up, she putting her arms over their shoulders, and while the three other girls wended their way over the cliff, Cora was carried safely back to the spot where still lay the helpless Whirlwind.
CHAPTER VII – THE CLUE AT THE SPRING HOUSE
Just how Cora did manage to run her car into Chelton, with a stiffened wrist and a twisted shoulder, she was not able to explain afterward to the anxious ones at home. Belle rode with her, and was sufficiently familiar with the machine to take a hand at the wheel now and then, but it was Cora who drove the Whirlwind, in spite of that.
It was now two days since the eventful afternoon at the strawberry patch, and the girls were ready again to make the trip to Squaton, in quest of the crate of berries promised to Mrs. Robinson.
Jack argued that his sister was not strong enough to run her car with ease, so he insisted on going along. Then, when his friends, Ed Foster and Walter Pennington, heard of this they declared it was a trick of Jack’s to “do them out of a run with the motor girls,” and they promptly arranged to go along also.
Ed rode with Walter, in the latter’s runabout, and the twins were, of course, together in the Flyaway, while Cora was beside Jack in the Whirlwind, for, although the girls were speedily turning into the years that would make them young ladies, they still maintained the decorum of riding “girls with girls” and “boys with boys,” except on very rare occasions.
As they rode along, an old stone house, set far back from the highway, attracted Jack’s attention.
“Let’s stop here,” he suggested, “and look over the place. I’ll bet it has an open fire place with a crane and fixings, for cooking.”
Word was passed to those in the other cars, and all were glad to stop, for the afternoon was delightful, and the ride to Squaton rather short.
As no path marked the grass that led to the old house it was evident that no one had lately occupied it. The boys ran on ahead to make sure that no ghosts or other “demons” might be lurking within the moldy place, while Cora, Bess and Belle stopped to pick some particularly pretty forget-me-nots, from near the spring that trickled along through the neglected place.
Just back of the house, over the spring, the boys discovered the inevitable house for cooling milk, and here they delayed to drink from their pocket cups.
“What’s in the other side?” asked Walter, peering through the broken boards into a second room or shed, for the shack was divided into two parts.
“More spring, I suppose,” replied Jack, taking his third drink from the small cup.
Walter and Ed had finished drinking just as the girls came up, and Jack attended to their various degrees of thirst for pure spring water.
“What a quaint old place,” remarked Belle. “What’s in the other little house?”
“We are just about to find out,” said Jack. “The other fellows couldn’t wait, and are in there now.”
Hurrying out, they all entered, through the battered door, into the “other side.”
“Well, I declare!” exclaimed Ed. “What does this mean?”
“I