“I guess they can stop it,” murmured Cora. “Oh, I do hope they can!”
“Let’s go in and help!” cried Bess. “They may need us!”
Bravely the motor girls entered the garage. A shift in the wind had blown the smoke away from the door. They could see the boys and men fighting the flames that were in a far corner of the main room.
Belle suddenly ran forward and dashed on the blaze the pan of sand that she had not relinquished.
“Bravo!” cried Jack. “You’re a heroess!”
He held his hand to his smarting eyes.
“Let me take that extinguisher!” begged Belle, plucking a half-emptied one from him.
“Here’s one for me!” exclaimed Bess, picking it up off the floor. It had not been opened. She knocked off the top and, doing as the others did, she sent the powder in a sweeping motion toward the flames. Some of the men ran out for more sand. The blaze was being well fought now. There was really no need for the fire department.
Above the place where the autos were stored were rooms formerly occupied by the coachman and his family, before Mrs. Kimball disposed of her horses. The stairs to these rooms were boxed in, a door leading directly to the path that went to the driveway.
“I can go up there and get another extinguisher!” cried Cora, indicating the stairway. “I know there’s one there.”
“No need to!” exclaimed Ed, who again had to get a breath of fresh air. But Cora was already in the enclosed stairway.
The next moment she shrieked:
“Oh, what is it? Oh dear! Who is it? Come quick–someone!” Everyone was startled–even the danger of the now almost extinguished fire spreading again could not detract from the import of danger they recognized in Cora’s voice.
Some one seemed to answer her from the stairway.
“Don’t! Please don’t! I did not do it! Let me go! Please do!”
“What is it, Cora?” called Jack, preparing to go to her.
His sister had found a woman in the hallway–a strange woman who seemed much excited. Her pleading tones as she confronted Cora touched the girl’s heart.
“Don’t let them know I am here–not yet!” begged the stranger. “I can explain–everything. Oh, so much depends on this! Please do as I say!”
“All right!” said Cora, making a sudden resolve. “I’ll let you explain.”
“But keep the others back–they are coming!”
“I’ll send them back.” Cora took a few steps toward the door. She could hear some one running across the garage floor.
“It’s all right!” cried Cora. “Go back and fight the fire, boys. I’ll be there in a minute. I want to get that other extinguisher to make certain. But I thought a rat – ”
She knew that would be explanation enough for her cries, and from where they were the boys, girls, and men now in the garage could not see her or the strange woman.
“A rat!” cried Jack, with a laugh, as he heard his sister’s word. “The idea of being frightened at a rat in a time of fire!”
“I guess the rodents will make short tracks,” was Ed’s opinion. “Come on, we’ve got to give it a little more, Jack!”
The boys went back to the fire, Bess, Belle and Eline, who had taken shelter in the garage, watching them. It was pouring too hard to stand outside, and, now that the smoke had mostly disappeared, there was not much discomfort. The danger, too, was practically over, as a can of gasoline that had not burned had been set outside. There had been really more smoke than fire from the first.
Cora went back to the strange woman.
“You need not be afraid,” spoke the girl, in a tone that gave encouragement. “We will not blame you too much–until we have heard your story. But of course I must know who you are.”
“Yes–yes,” answered the woman. She sank down on the stairs. The place was free of smoke, and some distance from the blaze. Suddenly the stranger arose, and clutching Cora’s arm in a grip that hurt, and that showed the nervous tension under which she was laboring, she whispered:
“I know I can trust you–I can tell by your face. But the–others!” she gasped.
“Leave it to me,” answered Cora. “I may be able to think of a way to help you. Go over into the kitchen, and say Miss Cora sent you. It is so dark now the others will not see you. Hurry.”
With her brain in a whirl–wondering upon what strange mystery she had stumbled, Cora thrust the woman forth from the stable. Then, seeing that she advanced toward the house, the girl groped her way up the stairs to get the extinguisher. When she came down the fire was sufficiently conquered as not to need more attention.
“Did a rat get you?” asked Jack. “Say, you do look pale, Sis,” for the electric lights, with which the garage was illuminated, had been turned on. Truly Cora seemed white.
“There are some big ones up there,” she remarked evasively, wondering if the woman would really go to the house.
With unsteady steps the stranger made her way to the kitchen, where two rather frightened maids were watching the progress made in fighting the fire.
“Miss–Miss Cora told me to come here–and wait for her,” faltered the woman. She made no effort to ascend the steps of the back porch.
“Come right in,” urged Nettie. “Or perhaps you would rather sit out here and watch. I’ll get you a chair.”
“Yes, I would–thank you.”
She walked up and sat down.
“I–I had rather be out in the air,” she went on.
Back in the garage the young people were seeing that no lingering spark remained.
“It is all out,” remarked Bess. “Oh, but we’re so soiled and–and smoky.”
“Regular bacon,” remarked Jack with a grin. He looked like a minstrel because of the grime.
“Oh, wasn’t it a narrow escape!” gasped Belle. “Could the lightning have struck?”
“It didn’t seem so,” remarked Cora, not now so nervous. But she was still puzzled over the presence of that strange woman in the garage at the time of the fire.
“It was gasoline–whatever else it was,” declared Jack. “I can tell that by the smell. Maybe some of that we used in an open pan to clean my machine exploded,” he went on to his chums.
“Could it go off by spontaneous combustion?” asked Ed. “It’s possible,” admitted Walter. “Unless some one was smoking in here–some tramp.”
“Oh, no!” protested Cora quickly. The woman did not seem a tramp–certainly she did not smoke.
“We must get the cars back in here,” said Jack. “The rain is slackening now.” This was so, for the shower, though severe, had not been of long duration. “We want them in shape for to-morrow,” he went on.
“Are we going after all this?” asked Belle.
“Certainly!” exclaimed Cora. “This fire didn’t amount to much.”
“I’m much obliged to you,” spoke Jack to the passing workmen who had come in to help. Jack passed them some money.
“We’ll help you roll the cars in,” suggested one.
“Yes, it will be better to roll them by hand than take chances on starting them up, and making sparks,” said Jack. “Come on, boys!”
“Come on, girls!” echoed Cora. “We’ll go to the house.”
While her brother,