Their trips took them at one time or another to almost every section of the interior and the coast. At Lookout Beach, through New England, on Cedar Lake, at Crystal Bay, on the coast, even as far as the West Indies, all that happened to them on these expeditions, and it was much, is told in the previous volumes of the series.
In the volume immediately preceding this one, called “The Motor Girls at Camp Surprise,” a number of very strange happenings are recorded. To begin with, Cora’s car was stolen and she was almost inconsolable, for though her mother would have bought her one to replace it, she had an affectionate attachment for the old one that had so many happy memories connected with it. They found no real track of the thieves until, when they were spending the early part of the summer at Camp Surprise, they came across a gang of ticket counterfeiters, who had set up their plant in an underground passage leading from the very house where the girls were staying.
And now, as the reader has seen, the girls were on their way to spend the late summer in the heart of the Adirondacks. And right at the outset they had been witnesses of what was so nearly a tragedy that for the moment their hearts had stood still.
All alert, now that their terror for the child’s safety was dispelled, the girls hurried over to the driver, who still lay stretched out in the road. As they approached he opened his eyes and looked about him in a dazed way.
“The child,” he murmured, as he brushed his hand over his forehead. “Is it safe?”
“It’s all right,” replied Cora cheerily, immensely relieved to find that the driver was not dead, as she had feared. “But don’t try to talk now until you feel a little stronger.”
She knelt down and took his head upon her knee.
“Run to the house, girls, and get some water,” she commanded, taking charge of things, as she always did in a crisis.
The farmer’s wife, who had now got back some of her self-control, led the way into the house, and in a moment the girls were back with plenty of cool water and some linen. Cora washed a cut in the man’s head, deftly tied a bandage around it, and put some water to his lips, which he drank eagerly.
The cut was not a serious one, and the farmer, who had joined the group, announced after a brief examination that no bones seemed to be broken. He was urgent that the man should be taken into the house and a doctor sent for, but the injured man, who was getting stronger by the minute and seemed to have a very determined will of his own, vetoed this emphatically.
“There’s nothing the matter with me except for the shock and a few bruises,” he declared. “I’ll be as well as ever as soon as this dizziness passes away.”
He proved himself a true prophet, for at the end of ten minutes he was on his feet and looking ruefully at his car.
“Pretty much of a wreck, I imagine,” he remarked with a twisted smile, as he walked around it and took stock of the damage.
The girls joined in the inspection, and as they knew as much about automobiles as the man himself, they satisfied themselves that he had not exaggerated much in describing it as a “wreck.” The wheels and part of the body were intact, but the machinery was badly knocked out of gear. It was clear that it would not be able to go under its own power.
“There’s a garage a few miles further on,” the stranger remarked. “I’ll have to leave word there and have them come back to get it.”
“No need of doing that,” volunteered Cora. “We’re going in that direction, and we’ll be glad to tow you there.”
The man hesitated.
“It’s very good of you,” he replied, “but I’m afraid I’ve taxed your kindness too far already.”
“It won’t be any trouble at all,” returned Cora cordially. “You can sit in the front seat with me, and as my car is a powerful one we’ll be able to tow yours easily.”
He demurred a little longer, but finally accepted the offer with hearty thanks. The farmer brought out a rope, and with the aid of a couple of farm hands got the wrecked machine out in the road. Then the two cars were connected and the girls started off, with a parting wave of the hand and a smile directed especially to the little toddler, who was held tightly in the mother’s arm.
“That child won’t be allowed to go out of the gate alone again in a hurry, I guess,” laughed Belle.
“It wasn’t the child’s fault,” remarked the stranger. “I was going altogether too fast. If I’d been moving at a moderate rate I could have stopped in plenty of time. Fact is, I was thinking of something else – none too pleasant thoughts they were either – and I didn’t realize just how fast I was going.”
“You were very lucky to get off as well as you did, Mr. – ” Cora hesitated inquiringly.
“Morley,” supplemented the stranger. “Bless my heart, here I am accepting all this service from you young ladies and forgetting to introduce myself. Samuel Morley is my name, and I live in the town of Saxton, about twenty miles from here. Yes, as you were saying, I was very lucky to get off as well as I did – a good deal luckier than I deserved. Though perhaps it would have been just as well if I had been killed after all.”
He brought out the last sentence so savagely that the girls were startled.
“You mustn’t mind what I say,” he said apologetically, as he noted the look on their faces. “I’m just a crabbed old stick anyway. If I hadn’t been that, I wouldn’t have so many painful memories now. Sometimes they come crowding in upon me until it seems as though I couldn’t stand them. But I wouldn’t want to say anything that would shadow the faces of young girls. There was a young girl once – ”
He caught himself up sharply.
“But here I am doing all the talking,” he said. “That’s a sign I’m getting old. Now suppose you girls turn the tables. Tell me all about yourselves and where you are going.”
The conversation became general then, and from that time on he carefully refrained from saying anything bearing on himself, although the girls, who scented a romance or a tragedy somewhere, would gladly have forborne their own talk in order to hear more of his story.
“There’s the garage over there,” he said, as they drew near the outskirts of a town, pointing to a low building on the right.
Cora drove her car close in and the keeper of the garage came out and unfastened the rope that bound the two machines.
“I can’t thank you young ladies enough,” Mr. Morley said gratefully, as he shook hands with them. “I only hope the time will come when I can repay the favor.”
“Are you feeling all right now?” asked Cora, as she got ready to throw in the clutch.
“Nothing worse than a headache. You’re a first-class doctor,” he replied with a twinkle in his eye.
Cora laughed.
“Don’t tell any one,” she admonished. “It might get me into trouble. You know, I haven’t a license to practise in this state.”
CHAPTER III
THE MISSING PURSE
“What queer things that man said about himself,” remarked Belle, as she settled back in her seat.
“I was wild to have him go on,” replied her sister. “I’m sure he’s got a romance or a mystery of some kind in his life.”
“Did you see how suddenly he checked himself when he started to talk about that girl?” asked Cora.
“Perhaps it was some girl whom he intended to marry,” said Bess, who had a strong vein of sentiment in her composition.
“Well,