As the train moved off, Mr. Stuart and Mrs. Thurston watched for a few moments a circle of waving hands. A little later their car swung around a curve and Kingsbridge was lost to view.

"The Automobile Girls" and Miss Sallie then repaired to the hotel. Grace, Mollie and Bab were to be Ruth's guests until they started for the Berkshires. All was in readiness.

The week before, Mr. Stuart had taken the girls to New York for a few days' shopping. If ever there were young women fitted up in the proper styles for mountain climbing they were. Each girl was presented with two pairs of thick, high boots and leather leggins. Ruth insisted that her heavy wool dress be made of the Stuart plaid. She then had a tam o'shanter designed from the same Scotch tartan. But Ruth's proudest possession was a short Norfolk jacket made of the same leather as her leggins, and a knapsack to carry over her shoulders. Attired in her woodland costume, she looked not unlike "Rosalind" in Shakespeare's play, when that maid comes into the woods disguised as a boy to seek for her father.

Barbara's suit was of dark brown corduroy, with jacket and cap to match.

Grace would choose nothing but her favorite dark blue. But her costume was the most striking of them all, for, with her blue skirt and blouse, she was to wear a coat of hunter's pink and a smart, little hat of the same bright scarlet shade. Mr. Stuart selected the costume for Mistress Mollie. She at least, he insisted, should be arrayed in the proper shade of Lincoln green; and like a veritable "Maid Marian" she appeared.

For once Miss Sallie was entirely satisfied with their selection of costumes. "For me," she argued in her most decided manner, "the most necessary garments are half a dozen pairs of overshoes, and the same number of mackintoshes and umbrellas. I shall also take an extra trunk of warm flannels. If the fall rains begin while we are camping in the mountains we shall surely be washed down into the valley before we can make our escape."

CHAPTER IV

IN THE HEART OF THE BERKSHIRES

A crimson automobile was climbing the steep inclines of the Berkshire Hills. Now it rose to the crest of a road. Again it dipped into a valley.

It looked like a scarlet autumn leaf blown down from one of the giant forest trees that guarded the slopes of the mountains.

Mollie Thurston stood up in the back of the motor car, waving a long green veil.

"Isn't the scenery just too perfect for words?" she called to Ruth.

The day was wonderful; the September sun shone warm and golden through the shadows of dancing, many-colored leaves. "The Automobile Girls" had left summer behind them in Kingsbridge. Three days of traveling found them in the early autumn glory of the Berkshire woods.

Ruth did not answer Mollie's question.

"My dear child, wake up!" commanded Miss Sallie, leaning over to give her niece a gentle poke with her violet parasol. "Have you grown suddenly deaf? Can you not hear when you are spoken to?"

Ruth glanced up from her steering wheel. "Did some one speak to me?" she queried. "I am so sorry I did not hear. I am afraid I am both deaf and dumb to-day. But we simply must get to our mountain by noon. Driving a car over these mountain roads isn't the easiest task in the world."

Barbara laughed back over her shoulder at the occupants of the end seat in the car. "Miss Sallie Stuart," she said in solemn tones, "please, let our chauffeur alone! Suppose the dark descends upon us in the woods and you have 'nary' a place to lay your head!"

"Then I should immediately find a hotel and ask for a room and a bath,"

protested Miss Stuart, who did not favor the idea of the log cabin in the woods. "Remember, children, you may pretend as hard as you like that we are a thousand miles from civilization; but, unless we are perfectly comfortable in the woods, I shall take you to the best hotel in Lenox.

From there you may do your mountaineering in a respectable way."

"All the more need for you to hurry, Ruth," whispered Bab in her friend's ear. "I feel sure we shall find the guides and wagons waiting for us at the foot of the hill. If we get an early enough start up the mountain we can get fairly settled by night time."

Ruth nodded with her eyes straight in front of her. She kept her car moving swiftly ahead.

"Barbara, it is quite idle to talk to Ruth," broke in Miss Sallie, who had not heard just what Bab had said. "She is her father's daughter. Once her mind is made up to accomplish a thing, she will do it or die! So we might as well resign ourselves to our fate. She will reach 'her mountain,' as she calls it, by noon, even if we have to jump a few of these embankments to succeed."

Miss Sallie was growing tired.

"Why did I ever allow myself to be brought on such a wild expedition after the experiences you girls led me into in Newport!" she said.

"Now, Miss Sallie!" said Grace Carter gently--Grace was always the peacemaker--"you know you love these glorious woods as much as we do.

Think how jolly things will be when we go down into Lenox after it grows too cold to stay in camp. Who knows but you will turn out the best sportsman in the lot? And we shall probably have our guide teach you to shoot before we are through this trip."

Miss Stuart sniffed indignantly. Then she laughed at the thought of her plump fingers pulling the trigger of a gun. "What is our guide's outlandish name?" she inquired in milder tones.

"Naki, and his wife is called Ceally," Grace answered. "You remember Mr.

Stuart explained they were originally French Canadians, but they have been living in these mountains for a number of years. Because they used to be guides up in the Canadian forests they don't know any other trade to follow in these peaceful woods."

"These woods were by no means always peaceful, my lady Grace!" a.s.serted Bab. "You can't even be perfectly sure they are peaceful now. Why," she went on in thrilling tones, "these hillsides once ran red with the blood of our ancestors and of the friendly Indian tribes who fought with them against the French."

"Oh, come! come! No more American history!" remarked Mollie. "Beg pardon, but I do object to Bab's school-teacher manner. Did you ever see anything so lovely as these hills are now? The scenery around here is like the enchanted forests of Arcady."

"Oh, Miss Sallie, girls, look!" called Grace. From the high crest of a hill "The Automobile Girls" gazed down upon one of the loveliest valleys in the Berkshires. Afar off they could see the narrow Housatonic River winding its way past villages and fields, from the hillsides, which gave it the Indian name; for Housatonic means "a stream over the mountains."

Nestling in the valleys lay a chain of silver lakes.

Ruth paused an instant. "Over there ahead of us is 'our mountain.' I think we can reach it in an hour or so."

While they were pursuing their journey, another small party was gathering on the slope of the hill opposite. A long, lean man burned to the color and texture of leather sat on the front seat of a wagon drawn by two strong mountain horses. By his side was his wife, almost as thin and brown; behind them, piled up in the wagon, were trunks, rolls of steamer rugs, kitchen utensils, making altogether as odd an a.s.sortment of goods as if the couple were peddlers.

Strolling around near them was a younger man, evidently the driver of a well filled grocery wagon. His horse stood patiently cropping the fine, hillside gra.s.s. Farther up the roadside a chauffeur nibbled a spear of mint. He had no car near him, but his costume was unmistakable. Evidently something was in the air. Somebody or something was being waited for.

Soon after twelve o'clock, there was a whirr along the road. The cart horses raised their ears, and without a motion from their drivers, moved farther to the right side of the path. Berkshire Hills horses, in whatever station of life, needed no further notice. An automobile was approaching!

"Here they come!" cried the grocer's boy, jumping back into his wagon.

The chauffeur dropped his piece of mint and gazed down the road. Now at least there was something worth seeing!

"Hip! hip! hurrah!" "The Automobile Girls" landed with a flourish beside the wagons. Their laughter woke the sleeping echoes in the hills.

"Are you Naki and Ceally?" cried Ruth, jumping out of the car and running forward with her hand extended. "And are these our things you have in the wagon? I am so sorry we are a few minutes late; but these mountain roads take longer to drive over than I had expected. I hope I haven't kept you waiting very long."

"No'm," said the guide, sliding slowly down from his perch on the camping outfit. He emptied the pipe he had been comfortably smoking. "Time enough," he answered. Naki was a man of few words.

The chauffeur had walked over to Ruth's car and was a.s.sisting Miss Sallie to descend. "You are to take this car into Lenox, I believe," Miss Stuart began. "My niece will explain matters to you more fully. I am told we cannot take the car any further up this side of the hill. Where is the carriage in which we are to drive?"

"Oh, Aunt Sallie!" cried Ruth in consternation. "What are we to do? When Naki wrote there would be seats in his wagon for those of us who wished to drive up the hill, I am afraid he meant those seats in front by him and his wife."

The guide looked perfectly solemn, even when he beheld Miss Sallie's face. Imagine, if you can, Miss Sallie Stuart, nervous, as she was, perched on top of a rickety wagon! Add the fact that she was to be driven up an unexplored hillside by the side of the two queer, brown people to whom they were confiding their fates!

"We don't ride 'longside of you, Miss," explained Naki to Ruth. "I leads the horses up and my wife walks by their side. There's room for three of you up there on the front seat. It's more comfortable than it looks. The other two of you had better walk or you can ride in the grocery wagon.

The man's coming along behind us with the provisions."

Miss Sallie had not spoken again. Her expression was that of a martyr.

"Do you think you can manage, Miss Sallie?" Bab pleaded.

Ruth was explaining matters to the chauffeur. He was to take the car to Lenox. Every afternoon at one o'clock he was to return with it to this fork in the road and wait for half an hour. If "The Automobile Girls"

decided on a trip to one of the nearby towns, they would join him at this place; for here the good road ended and the trail up the hillside began.

The camp was a long way from any town, but an automobile defies distance.