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  Sometimes they were on the edge of such dizzy heightsthat Miss Campbell held her breath.]

  THE MOTOR MAIDS ACROSS THE CONTINENT

  BY

  KATHERINE STOKES

  AUTHOR OF "THE MOTOR MAIDS' SCHOOL DAYS," "THE MOTOR MAIDS BY PALM AND PINE," ETC.

  NEW YORK HURST & COMPANY PUBLISHERS

  Copyright, 1911, BY HURST & COMPANY

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER PAGE I. Westward Ho! 5 II. Peter 22 III. In Search of a Dinner 33 IV. The Three Wishes 48 V. An Incident of the Road 67 VI. Under the Stars 81 VII. Barney M'Gee 92 VIII. Cutting the Bonds 106 IX. The Girl from the Golden West 117 X. Steptoe Lodge 130 XI. The Hawkes Family 146 XII. Into the Wilderness 156 XIII. Hot Air Sue 168 XIV. On the Road Again 177 XV. In the Robbers' Nest 190 XVI. In the Rockies 206 XVII. Salt Lake City 218 XVIII. David and Goliath 229 XIX. A Day of Surprises 242 XX. The Elopement 258 XXI. A Meeting in the Desert 270 XXII. A Bit of Old Italy 280 XXIII. A Change of Heart 292 XXIV. San Francisco at Last 301

  THE MOTOR MAIDS ACROSS THE CONTINENT

  CHAPTER I.--WESTWARD HO!

  "At my age, too," began Miss Helen Campbell, leaning back in her seatand folding her hands with an expression of resignation.

  "At your age, what, dear cousin?" demanded Wilhelmina Campbell,superintending the strapping on at the back of the car of five extralarge suit cases and other paraphernalia for a long trip. "Why shouldnot things happen at your age as well as at ours? But at your age,what?"

  "At my age to turn emigrant," exclaimed the little lady. "At my age tobecome a gypsy vagabond. Oh, dear, oh, dear! What would grandpapa havesaid?"

  "He would have been delighted, I am certain, Cousin Helen," answered heryoung relative, "since he was a soldier and a jolly old gentleman, too,papa has always said."

  "But such an up to date gypsy-vagabond-emigrant, Miss Campbell," pursuedElinor Butler, "one who rides in a motor car and wears a silk travelingcoat and a sky-blue chiffon veil."

  "And has four ladies-in-waiting," continued Nancy Brown.

  "And hotels all along the route to sleep in instead of tents," finishedMary Price.

  "Very true, my dears. I admit all you say; but now at the last moment,when we are about to start on this amazing journey, I cannot helpthinking it is a wild adventure. But I shall be over it in a moment, Idaresay. Have the machine cranked-up, Billie. Do I use the correct word?and let us be off before my courage fails me altogether."

  With a happy laugh, Billie jumped into her seat behind the wheel. Theother girls were already in their accustomed places. One of theattendants from the hotel gave the crank a dexterous twist; there was athrobbing sound of machinery in action, and off shot the Comet like aspirited horse, eager to be on the road.

  Miss Campbell's spirits rose with the sun, for it was still very earlywhen the Motor Maids started on their famous journey across thecontinent from Chicago to San Francisco. And all the world seemed to bein league to make the start a happy one. It was a glorious morningtoward the last of May, the air just frosty enough to make the bloodtingle and bring color to the cheeks. Up to the very day before, an icygale had blown across the windy city of the plains, but through thenight it had gradually tempered into a springtime breeze. The red carsped through the sunshine with all the vigor of machinery in perfectorder, and the polished plate glass of the wind guard reflected the fourhappy faces of the Motor Maids off on a lark, which, when all is saidand done, and the last page of this volume filled, will have carriedthem through many an adventure along the way.

  Through Chicago they whirled, past fine homes where sleepy maids andbutlers were just opening windows and blinds to let in the morninglight; through business streets already humming with life, and at lastout through the suburbs on a broad level road, due west, they took theircourse.

  Billie knew it all like a book because she had been stopping in Chicagofor a week and every day they had taken a spin in the Comet along somefifty miles of the route. Moreover, for a month past, she had beenstudying maps and guide-books until her mind reflected now only a greatbird's-eye view of the United States through the center of which wasdrawn a red line; the road the Comet was to take when it bore them tothe Pacific Ocean.

  There was nothing now, however, in these flat, monotonous wheat fieldsto promote any particular interest. But there was much to talk about.

  "Was it only last week that we were four school girls at West Haven HighSchool slaving over examinations?" cried Elinor Butler.

  "Only a little week ago," exclaimed Mary joyfully, "and now, behold us,free as birds on the wing."

  There was a flush of happiness on her usually pale face. It had been along, hard spring for her, and she was glad after examinations wereover, to hurry away with her friends without waiting for the finalexercises.

  "School! School!" said Nancy Brown, her face dimpling with happiness."Don't mention the hateful word. I am as full of mathematics and historyand physics and Latin as a black cake is of plums."

  "Plums!" echoed Billie. "I'm stuffed with another variety of fruit. It'sdates."

  They laughed at the word dates; for, remembering dates, aside frommathematics, was the _bete noir_ of Billie's school days and the teacherof history was very unpopular because she made the pupils of her classeslearn six dates a day.

  "But the class is even with Miss Hawkes now," put in Nancy. "She isn'tto come back next year, and we gave her a present besides."

  "Why did you give her a present?" asked Miss Campbell, suddenly becomingcurious.

  "Well, you see, at the end of school we reckoned we had learned about800 dates, not that we could remember 100 or even 50. It was Elinor whothought of it and because she has more nerve than any one else in theclass----"

  "Indeed I have not," protested Elinor.

  "Because she was never afraid even of the terrifying Miss Hawkes, shewas chosen to make the speech and give Miss Hawkes a present from theclass."

  Miss Campbell smiled. She was never tired of listening to theirschool-girl talk.

  "What did you say and what was the present, my dear?"

  "I said," replied Elinor, "that, representing the class, I wanted tothank her for the splendid mental training she had given us last winter,and we wished to show our appreciation by giving her a littleremembrance."

  "'Remembrance' was a good word, Elinor," cried Billie.

&nbsp
; "If she hadn't been so pleased and made that speech of thanks, itwouldn't have mattered so much," put in Mary. "But I was ashamed whenshe untied the ribbons on the box----"

  "And what was in it, child?" demanded Miss Campbell.

  "Dates," cried Billie, "dozens of dates packed in as tightly as datescan be packed, just as she had been packing them into our brains fornine months."

  "Oh! oh!" exclaimed Miss Campbell, trying to be shocked and laughing inspite of herself. "The poor soul! How embarrassed she must have felt.Was she very angry?"

  "We couldn't tell whether she was angry or hurt," answered Elinor. "Shedrew herself up stiffer and straighter than usual if possible, andmarched out of the room without a word."

  "And left us feeling very foolish indeed, cousin," went on Billie. "Butthat isn't all. Because I was the one who never could remember a datefrom one day to the next, I suppose she suspected me of having been thering-leader and this morning when we stopped at the desk of the hotelfor mail, the clerk handed me this letter. It was forwarded from WestHaven."

  Billie drew an envelope from the pocket of her motor coat and gave it tothe others.

  "Read it," she said. "I didn't mention it before because I was so muchinterested in getting away and I had really forgotten it until thesubject came up. I suppose Miss Hawkes is just a little queer in herupper story."

  The letter read:

  "I understand you are going West in your automobile. If, on your journey, you should by chance hear the name of 'Hawkes,' do not treat it as lightly as you did in West Haven. Somewhere in the West that name is powerful.

  "Anna Hawkes."

  "How absurd!" exclaimed Elinor. "She is queer. I am certain of it."

  "Anyhow," pursued Billie, "I am ashamed of what we did now. I suppose itmust have hurt her awfully."

  "Not more than she hurt us when she scolded us for forgetting thoseawful dates," said Nancy relentlessly.

  "Oh, well," put in Miss Campbell, "she is just an angry old spinster whogot obsessed with dates and then had a rude awakening. I don't think itwas exactly respectful to have given the lady a box of dried dates. Butshe brought it on herself, as you say. Tear up the letter and forget allabout it. I have no doubt she is a perfectly harmless old person."

  Miss Campbell always had a secret contempt for other spinsters.

  "But she isn't old, you know, cousin. She's just out of college."

  "Oh, indeed. I imagined she was a crusty old maid."

  "Perhaps she has reference to the powerful family of chicken hawks,"observed Nancy.

  "Or the illustrious fish-hawk family, only they are mostly centeredaround New Haven," added Mary.

  "How about the tomahawk family?" suggested Billie.

  How, indeed? But there was no answer to this strangely pertinentquestion because of a timely incident which now occurred.

  With the picture still in their minds of a great fish hawk skimmingthrough the air, as they had often seen him do at home, there now came asound of whirring far above them.

  Nancy leaned out of the automobile and looked up.

  "Oh! oh!" she exclaimed in great excitement "Oh, stop--look! What isit?"

  Billie stopped the car and they jumped out into the road, craning theirnecks as they scanned the heavens.

  Flying westward, but still some distance away, came what resembled atfirst a gigantic bird with wings outspread, soaring even as the fishhawk soars, as he skims through the air.

  "It's an aeroplane," whispered Billie, almost speechless withexcitement.

  They seemed to be alone in the great flat world of green fields. To theright and left of them stretched level fields now cultivated andyielding great crops of corn and wheat. Less than a hundred years agowhat would those travelers in lumbering wagons across the prairies havethought if they had seen such a bird flying overhead?

  On sailed the flying machine, like a huge dragon fly above them. In theclear atmosphere which is peculiar to this prairie region they couldplainly see a human being riding it. Then, the birdman, as if he werenot already high enough to see the whole world stretched out beneathhim, began slowly to rise in the blue ether like a skylark at dawn. Up,up he went, until he was merely a black speck in the heavens.

  Miss Campbell sat flat down at the side of the road.

  "I can't endure it," she cried. "Suppose he should never come back."

  "What goes up must come down," observed Mary in a low voice much tooexcited to speak naturally.

  Immediately fulfilling her prophetic remark, the flying machine sailedback into view. It was some distance beyond them now, but even so farthey could hear the clicking noise which was all the more accentuatedbecause no other sound followed. The motor had ceased to whir. They sawthe aeroplanist fumble frantically with the machinery, then suddenly,with a twist of its body that was almost swifter than the eye, theflying machine turned its nose earthward and shot straight down.

  "Is that the way he lands?" demanded Miss Campbell.

  "No, no," answered Billie excitedly as she hastened to crank themachine. "Get in quickly--everybody! Something must be broken. He may behurt."

  Another moment they were tearing down the road toward the field wherethey had seen the flying machine drop.

  "There he is," cried Nancy, already on the step of the Comet as Billiedrew up at the side of the road.

  Now, unfortunately, a wire fence separated the field from the road toprevent idle wandering people from trampling down the young wheat. Itwas no easy matter to crawl through the interstices of barbed wire, andBillie, in her haste, tore a great gaping hole in her automobile coat.

  But she pulled off the wrap with the recklessness of a young person whohas something far more interesting on hand than pongee coats, and flungit in the road where it was rescued by Miss Campbell.

  In the middle of the field lay the flying machine, looking very muchlike an enormous kite at close range. But where was the human being whoso lately had been mounting high into the air?

  A man's foot sticking out from the midst of the debris revealed him atlast lying huddled up under the machine.

  It was no simple matter to untangle him from the ruins, and it took alltheir strength and courage, too, with that face so white and stillturned upward, but, by the grace of Providence, which watches over thelives of some rash beings, the young man was not even hurt. He was onlystunned, and presently Miss Campbell, who had managed somehow to crawlthrough the fence, brought him back to life with her smelling salts.

  "If I can only keep from sneezing," he began, opening his eyes andblinking them in amazement when he beheld the faces of five ladiesleaning over him in states of more or less extreme excitement.

  The aeroplanist was really almost a boy and rather small. He had reddishbrown hair and reddish brown eyes to match. His features were regular.His mouth firm and well modeled, and he had a square, determined-lookingjaw.

  "Oh," he exclaimed. "Then it wasn't a dream. I did sneeze."

  The girls privately thought his mind was wandering.

  "You tumbled down out of the sky," said Nancy.

  "Are you better now?" asked Miss Campbell, applying her smelling saltsto his nose.

  "I'm all right," he answered, bewildered, and began slowly to pullhimself together and get up. He staggered a little as he rose and stoodlooking ruefully down at the demolished aeroplane. They noticed that hewas not dressed like a messenger from Mars, as they had seenaeroplanists attired in pictures. He wore brown clothes and a brown tiethe same shade as his hair, and a brown cap with a vizor which hadfallen on the ground.

  "It is very kind of you ladies to come to my rescue," he said as hissenses returned. "I was getting on famously with the thing when Isneezed. I felt it coming on, but it couldn't be stopped, and I lostcontrol and shot down like a piece of lead. Aeroplanists will have tostop sneezing until something more reliable in the way of a flyingmachine is invented."

  "What are you going to do with this?" asked Billie,
pointing to thedemolished machine.

  "Nothing," he answered. "It's all in, as far as I can see."

  "Oh, then may we have a souvenir?" demanded Nancy.

  "Help yourself," he said, smiling faintly and pressing his hand to hishead, which was still buzzing with the shock of the fall.

  "You poor boy," exclaimed Miss Campbell, "come right along and let ustake you somewhere. You are suffering of course, and these foolish girlsare thinking of souvenirs."

  While the others assisted him across the field, Nancy lingered besidethe flying machine and presently selected a piece of the machinery; youwould probably be no wiser if I told you what piece it was, andcertainly Nancy herself was as ignorant of its purpose as a cat of asewing machine. She chose it because it was detached from the rest andafter she had climbed gingerly through the wire fence she stored it awayin an inner chamber of the automobile and promptly forgot all about it.

  But long afterward she was to congratulate herself on obeying firstimpulses, which are usually the safest.