CHAPTER VIII
RED RAGS
"Well, we've been making pretty good speed for the last three hours,"said Mollie, taking first one hand, then the other, from the steeringwheel and stretching her cramped fingers experimentally. "Now if nothingelse happens--"
The sound of an explosion cut short the rest of the sentence, and sheput on the brakes, at the same time tooting a signal to Betty. Thelatter stopped her car and came running back to see what had happened.
"Tire," said Mollie laconically, forestalling the inevitable questions."I knew our luck had been too good to be true. Well," with the air of amartyr accepting the inevitable, "I suppose there's nothing to do butget busy and fix it, though, of course, this spoils our chances ofgetting to Bensington to-night," Bensington being the town midwaybetween Deepdale and Bluff Point where they had planned to spend thenight. It was also the only town for miles around that boasted a hotel.
"Oh, I don't know," said Betty in reply to Mollie's gloomy prediction."It won't be the first time we've accomplished the impossible."
"But it will soon be dark."
"Goodness! it won't be dark for hours and hours," Betty laughed at her."And this oughtn't to take us more than half an hour at the longest.Come on now, let's get busy."
Thus inspired, the girls "got busy," but they were tired with the longdrive and everything seemed to go wrong. Their usually skillful fingersfumbled, the tire was "too big or too little or something," to quoteAmy, and at the end of a quarter of an hour's useless struggle theirtempers were worn to a frazzle and they were ready to cry.
"Well, I never had anything act like that before," cried Mollieirritably. "I'd like to give the person that wrote about the 'depravityof inanimate things' a medal. The old tire's got a mean disposition,that's all."
"Well, it isn't the only one," Grace was beginning, when Mollie turnedand glared at her.
"If you mean me--"
"I meant all of us," Grace explained. "As long as we have been goingtogether, this is the first time I can remember when all of us have beenin the doleful dumps at once."
This brought a reluctant smile even to Mollie's gloomy countenance, andBetty laughed merrily.
"Perhaps it's just as well," said the Little Captain, adding with achuckle: "It's the same way with onions--if everybody eats 'em, no onecan notice the unpleasantness in the other fellow."
This brought a real laugh, and Mollie said fondly:
"I always knew you were a 'philosophiker,' Betty, dear. But," she added,vindictively kicking the tire that lay at her feet, "all the philosophyin the world won't put this tire on for us. And we can't very well getto Bensington on three wheels and a rim."
"No!" cried Grace, sarcastically. "Who would have guessed it?"
Mollie started to retort, but the threatened resumption of hostilitieswas cut short by the sound of a motor in the distance.
"Hark!" cried Mollie, a dramatic hand raised to a listening ear. "Do Ihear the approach of an angel?"
"If you do, he has a pretty earthly means of transportation," laughedBetty. "To me, it sounds like a machine or a motorcycle."
"How can you?" cried Mollie, still dramatically poised. "It is an angel,I tell you, come to help us out of our predicament."
"It is a motorcycle," cried Amy excitedly. "The engine is making toomuch noise for an automobile."
"Well," suggested Mrs. Ford quietly, "whoever it is, I think it might bea good idea to get out of the middle of the road."
"But if we do," Grace protested, "he'll go right past us."
"And if we don't we'll get run over," added Mrs. Ford.
The girls looked at each other helplessly.
"I tell you," cried Betty suddenly, her eyes sparkling with a new idea."Give me that old red rag we use for a duster, Mollie, and I'll go andsignal your angel."
"Betty, you'll do no such thing," cried Amy, shocked, while Mollie dugunder the seat for the improvised signal flag. "Think of signaling astrange man!"
"But you forget he's an angel in disguise," laughed Betty, snatching thedust cloth Mollie held out to her. "Anyway," she added, over hershoulder, "desperate cases require desperate remedies," and was offround the turn of the road.
There wasn't much time to spare either, for when she had clambered up ona rock by the side of the road, the motorcyclist was only a few hundredfeet away.
At the unexpected sight of a red rag wildly waved by a very gracefullittle figure in a gray traveling suit, he looked surprised but promptlyput on his brakes. He leapt from his machine and came running toward herwhile Betty descended from her perch just in time to meet him at thefoot of the rock.
"Is there anything the matter?" he asked, in a nice voice that Bettyimmediately liked. In fact, she liked nearly everything about him, fromhis sunburned face and merry blue eyes to his trim leather boots andputtees. So she gave him a friendly little smile that showed all herdimples, much to his secret admiration.
"Why, yes, there is," she answered, adding with a chuckle: "If therehadn't been, I shouldn't have been perched on that old rock, waving aridiculous red dust rag!"
Then, as they made their way around the turn in the road toward the carwhere Mrs. Ford and the girls were waiting for them, she explained thesituation, adding with another smile: "You see, I had to stop you someway, so I chose the very first method I could think of."
"It certainly was effective," he answered, smiling.
Then after mutual introductions, by which the girls learned that theirnew friend's name was Joe Barnes and that he had been on his way toDeeming, a village about five miles away when Betty's red flag hadbrought him to so sudden a stop, the youth went to work with a will atthe tire while the girls alternately watched him and helped by handinghim the tools he needed.
In what seemed no time at all to the girls he had finished his task andhad pulled out a handkerchief and was wiping his begrimed hands with it.
"My, you did do that in a hurry!" sighed Mollie, patting the new tirehappily. "You did in fifteen minutes what five of us couldn't do in halfan hour."
"You were probably tired," he answered, glancing at the car, which gaveunmistakable evidence of the many miles they had come that day. "Areyou, have you--" he hesitated, evidently not knowing whether hisquestion would be taken in good part or not. "Are you going very muchfarther?"
"Only about a hundred miles," laughed Betty, then added in answer to hisstartled glance: "Not to-night, though. We are just going as far asBensington."
"But Bensington is about fifteen miles away," he protested, adding as heglanced up at a lowering gray cloud overhead: "And if I know anythingabout weather signs, you will have to use some speed to get there beforethe storm."
"The storm!" they cried simultaneously, following his glance, whileMollie added petulantly:
"Goodness, haven't we had enough troubles for one day without getting adrenching into the bargain?"
"But we haven't got the drenching yet," Mrs. Ford reminded her, adding,with a cordial smile as she held out her hand to Joe Barnes: "We don'tknow how to thank you Mr. Barnes, for taking all this trouble for us."
"Please don't," he begged, flashing his nice smile upon them. "I am onlytoo glad to have been of assistance. And now, if I might suggest--"
Another glance at the ominous cloud which had grown bigger and blackereven in these few minutes, sent the girls scrambling unceremoniously totheir seats while Joe Barnes lifted his hat and stood waiting for themto start. Once his eyes rested upon Betty, and there was so muchundisguised admiration in them that she flushed prettily and threw inthe clutch with a jerk that was not at all skillful.
"Good-bye," they called, and "good-bye," he answered, as the two carssprang forward in a cloud of dust. Not until they were out of sight didJoe Barnes turn away and retrace his steps toward his desertedmotorcycle.
"Joe, my boy," he communed with himself, shaking his head over thememory of Betty's dimples, "that little Miss Nelson is one girl in amillion. I wonder now," slowly mounting his machine and
lookingreflectively at the road in front of it, "why I didn't ask if I mightcall." Then the absurdity of the idea made him laugh at himself. "Whatnonsense to think of taking advantage of an accident--Where was it theysaid they were stopping for the night? Oh, yes, Bensington. Well, hemight go there and take a chance on seeing them--her. Fate might even bekind to him and burst some more tires!" Then he laughed at himself againand started his motor.
Meanwhile Grace, who had noticed Joe Barnes' expressive glance inBetty's direction and the latter's subsequent confusion, commented uponthe coincidence.
"Goodness, Betty," she drawled lightly, "I always knew you were a heartbreaker, but I never saw you make a conquest in so short a time. Half anhour and--poof--it's all over but the shouting."
Betty gave an annoyed little laugh.
"Don't be foolish, Gracie," she commanded adding reflectively as sheskillfully avoided a rock in the road: "He was awfully nice lookingthough, and pleasant."
"Of course!"
"But I couldn't help wondering," Betty went on, as though talking toherself, "why he was here at all when his country needs him."
"Um--yes, that was rather strange," mused Grace. "One isn't used toseeing a young, good-looking and apparently healthy boy on this side ofthe water these days, unless he's in khaki. I wonder if our knight bythe wayside is by any chance one of those insects we term--"
"Slackers?" finished Betty, adding in quick defense: "No, I'm quite surehe isn't that kind. You know we have had a good chance to study bothtypes, and he doesn't look like a slacker."
"Granted," agreed Grace, adding with a quick change of mood: "Just thesame, it makes me feel desperate to see any young fellow running at hisown free will about the country, evidently enjoying life, while our boysare giving up everything--"
"But, if Joe Barnes isn't a slacker," Betty reminded her gently, "he isprobably passionately envying our boys the right to 'give upeverything'."
"Perhaps," replied Grace, eyes fixed moodily upon the flying landscape."But when I think of Will--"
For a long time there was silence. Then Betty gave a little start andregarded with disfavor a big drop that rested on the third finger of herright hand. She immediately resigned the guidance of the car to her lefthand while she held up the right for Grace's inspection.
"What's the matter with it?" queried the latter, who had been engrossedin her not too happy meditations.
"Rain," cried Betty succinctly, adding with a whimsical little smile: "Idon't know whether Joe Barnes is a slacker or not, but I do know he's agood prophet. We surely shall have to put on some speed if we want toreach Bensington before the storm!"