Jack Kimball, a student at Exmouth college, was almost as much a chum of Cora's as were her girl friends, and the girls regarded Jack and his chums, Walter Pennington and Paul Hastings, as their especial retainers and va.s.sals as the case demanded. Paul's sister Hazel, a sweet girl-if you know what I mean-had been quite friendly with Cora and her chums, until her removal to another city. Hazel was expected for a visit to Cora soon, and, as has been mentioned, Paul contemplated going camping with the boys.

Soon after Cora secured her car the Robinson twins induced their father to purchase one. The Motor Girls, as they had come to be known, went on a tour, in the course of which many things happened. They had more adventures at Lookout Beach, and also when they went through New England.

In succession Cora and her friends paid a visit to Cedar Lake, down on the coast, and next they spent a summer on Crystal Bay. They had there a most delightful time, but perhaps not more so than that told of in the book immediately preceding this one.

That volume is named "The Motor Girls on Waters Blue." I forgot to mention that the girls, after having served their apprenticeship, as it were, in automobiles, had acquired a fine, large motor boat. In this they had many good times, though it was not this boat that figured largely on the blue waters. When Mr. Robinson had been called to Porto Rico on business he had taken his daughters and Cora with him.

How the steamer on which Mr. Robinson sailed to another island was endangered, how the _Tartar_ was chartered by Cora and her chums to look for the shipwrecked ones, and how Inez Ralcanto, the beautiful Spanish girl, and her father, a political refugee, were aided-all this is set down in the book preceding this present volume.

It was not until after many hardships and not a little anxiety that matters were finally straightened out, and our friends came back to Cheerful Chelton, which had never seemed so homelike or so desirable, Cora said, as after the exciting episodes in what was practically a foreign land.

A fall and winter of gaiety had brought spring and early summer, in which delightful time of the year we now find our girl friends once more.

"It is gone! My car is gone!" exclaimed Cora, as they ran out of the tea room.

"Of course it is!" declared Belle. "Didn't I see them take it!"

"Two young men, you say?" asked her sister.

"Yes. I didn't see their faces, but I knew they were young by the way they moved about-so lively!"

"Say!" cried Cora, imbued by a sudden idea. "Could they have been Jack and Walter?"

"Your brother?" asked Bess.

"Yes. I heard him say he was coming over in this direction in his car.

He and Walter might have driven up, and, seeing my car and guessing that we were inside, may have gone off in it just for a joke."

"It's _possible_," a.s.sented Belle. "Anything is possible for Jack and Wally. But if they came here they must have left their car near by. Turn about is fair play-let's annex theirs."

"Let's find it first," said Cora.

They hurried out to the road. A quick look up and down showed no automobile in sight-not even Cora's.

"They must have speeded up," murmured Belle. "Oh! why weren't we quicker?"

"It doesn't amount to anything if those young men were really Jack and Walter," Cora said. "But we can't be sure of that; can we, Belle?"

"No, I can't. I only had a glimpse of their backs, and all backs look alike to me."

"It can't have been Jack," declared Bess, "or his car would be somewhere in sight. He wouldn't know we were in the tea room until he came up close, and then there wouldn't have been time to run his car back."

"You can't tell what they would do," said Cora. "Come on, we'll walk as far as the turn in the road, and see what's down there."

"Hadn't you better report your loss to the proprietor of the tea room?"

suggested Belle. "He might send a man out to look for the machine."

"I don't want to make too much fuss if it was Jack and Walter," Cora objected. "Let's take a look ourselves first."

The girls hurried down the road, all their drowsiness gone now. They were rather alarmed in spite of the cool way in which Cora took it.

"It's dreadfully warm walking," complained Bess. "I shall have to have more cream after this is over."

"You can go back and wait for us," suggested Cora, "if you're too--"

"Don't dare say I'm too stout to keep on the trail!" cried Bess. "I'll never give up!"

They were almost at the turn when the honking of an automobile horn warned them of the approach of a car.

"There they come back!" cried Belle, in relieved tones.

But a moment later, as a machine swung into view around the curve, the girls saw that it was not Cora's.

"But it's Jack and Walter!" cried the former's sister. "Wait! Stop!" she begged. "Jack-Wally-we're in trouble! Did you take our car?"

"Take your car?" repeated Jack, bringing his machine to a stop with a screeching of brakes. "What's the joke?"

"It isn't a joke at all!" declared Belle. "I saw two young men making off with Cora's car. At first we thought it might be you and Wally."

"Not guilty!" affirmed the latter, holding up a protesting hand.

"Where did all this happen?" Jack wanted to know.

"At the Spinning Wheel tea room. We stopped there," his sister informed him.

"Which way did they go?" asked Walter Pennington.

"Down this way," Belle said, explaining what she had seen, and how they had come along the road thinking to meet the perpetrators of the joke.

"Come on, Wally!" cried Jack. "We'll get after those fellows. It may have been a joke, and, again, it may not. No use taking any chances.

There have been several cars stolen around here lately. Maybe there's a regular organized gang. Go on back to your tea and cakes, girls. We'll round up the villains. Ha! Ha!" and he struck a theatrical att.i.tude.

"We'll wait at the tea room for you," Cora said. "You can trace my car in the dust, Jack, by the tire-marks. There's a big patch, where it was vulcanized. It's on the right forward wheel, and it makes a mark like a big Z. Look for it."

"I will, Sis. But there isn't much chance. Too many cars pa.s.s along this road to let the dust-marks of any particular one stay in sight long. But we'll do the best we can."

Jack backed and turned his car around, and was soon off down the road in a clatter of exhausts, while the three girls went back to Ye Olde Spinning Wheel.

"Who do you suppose they could be-those two fellows?" asked Bess.

"Haven't the least idea," her sister a.s.sured her.

"It couldn't have been Paul Hastings, could it?"

"Of course not!" declared Cora. "Paul isn't given to playing such jokes.

Besides, he's in the auto business you know, and he doesn't believe in taking chances with the cars of others. It may be a joke, as Jack says, and some of our numerous friends may have tried to scare us, or it may be--"

"Don't say your lovely car is really _stolen_!" interrupted Bess, impulsively.