"Luckier than I deserve," laughed Cora happily. "It was awfully careless of me to let the purse out of my hand for a second. It would have served me right if I had lost it."

"Do you think you really lost it?" asked Belle significantly.

The girls looked at each other, and it was evident that the same thought was shared by all.

"Perhaps it seems mean to say it," remarked Cora slowly, "but since you ask me, I must say that the whole thing looks queer. There was the way he kept his back to us when we were looking for it on our own account. But I don't lay so much weight on that, because he might have recognized us and felt a little sheepish after the way we took him down this afternoon. But why couldn't he have found it before the manager came along, and why did he find it so promptly when the manager was standing there watching him?

Of course, it might have been mixed up in the folds of the cloth the first time, and dropped out when he went over the goods again the second time. I suppose anyway we ought to give him the benefit of the doubt."

"He doesn't get the benefit of the doubt from me," said Bess in so emphatic a manner that the others, accustomed to her easy-going ways, looked at her in astonishment.

"You hard-hearted thing!" exclaimed her sister.

"What do you mean?" asked Cora.

"Listen, my children, and you shall hear," began Bess in her best manner.

"I kept my eye on that young gentleman--"

"The Gorgon stare," murmured her sister.

"When he was turning those bolts of cloth the second time," went on Bess, disdaining to dignify the interruption by noticing it, "and while he was fumbling them with one hand, I saw him bring up the purse from beneath the counter with the other hand and slip it under the cloth. Then, before I could say anything, he called out that he had found it. I could have shaken you when you thanked him so sweetly, Cora Kimball."

The girls looked at each other aghast.

"Did you ever?" gasped Belle.

"He ought to be exposed!" exclaimed Cora indignantly.

"I suppose he ought," agreed Bess placidly. "But after all, the proof wouldn't be strong enough. It would be simply my word against his, and he'd swear black and blue that I was mistaken. We'd only get mixed up in an ugly mess, and nothing would come of it after all. I fancy that that young man will get to the end of his rope soon enough without our having anything to do with it. Thank your lucky stars, Cora, that you've got your money back, and let it go at that."

"To think of Bess playing sleuth and tracking crime to its lair!" cried Belle. "I didn't think she had it in her."

"Oh, I'm some little bright-eyes, if you ask me," remarked Bess complacently, as she reached out for the last of the lemon drops.

"We'll have to work this up into amateur theatricals when the boys join us," laughed Cora.

"Yes," agreed Belle, "we'll stage a one-act play and call it: 'The Greed of Gold; or, Bess Robinson, the Girl Detective.'"

CHAPTER IV THE STERNER s.e.x

"Talking of the boys--" began Bess.

"Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh," drawled her sister.

Bess flushed.

"You think of them just as much as I do, Belle Robinson, and perhaps more!" she countered. "But what I was going to say when I was so rudely interrupted was to wonder when they were ever going to catch up with us."

"Jack said they'd surely overtake us before night," replied Cora. "Walter and he were all ready, but Paul had had some things to wind up for his firm before he started in on his vacation. He had telegraphed, though, that he would be in Chelton before noon, and Jack said he'd show us just how fast that car of his could travel. He's awfully proud of that car, but between us, girls, I don't think he has anything on this car of mine in the matter of speed," and she patted the wheel affectionately.

"Let's hope they don't get arrested for speeding," said Belle.

"Or run over any babies," put in Bess, with a lively recollection of the thrilling episode of the afternoon.

"I guess there's no danger of that," said Cora. "Jack's keen on speed, but he's a careful driver for all that. I tell you what we'll do, girls.

You keep a sharp lookout in the rear, for they may come into sight at any minute now, and the minute you see them coming you let me know. Then I'll let out a little and we'll try to tease them by keeping just far enough ahead of them to drive them crazy."

"That'll be dandy!" said Belle eagerly. "It'll do them good to take some of the conceit out of them. I suppose they think we've been pining to have them with us."

"Well, haven't you?" asked Bess mischievously.

"No, I haven't," declared Belle, but in a tone that somehow failed to carry conviction.

"That looks like their car now!" cried Bess excitedly, as she caught a glimpse of an automobile that had just swung around a curve in the road about half a mile in the rear.

Belle craned her neck in the same direction.

"I guess it is," she confirmed. "I can make out three people in it, but they're too far away to see their faces."

"We'll let them get a little nearer so we can make sure," said Cora, settling herself in her seat and taking a tighter grasp on the wheel, "and then we'll let them take our dust and see how they like it."

Belle knelt upon the seat to get a better view.

"Sister Anne, Sister Anne, do you see a man?" chanted Bess.

"Three of them," replied Belle, "and they're coming like all possessed.

I'm almost sure it's Jack that's driving. There, one of them has taken out a handkerchief and is waving it!"

"It's them," p.r.o.nounced Belle a moment later, forgetting her grammar in her excitement, and scrambling back into her seat again. "Now, Cora, it's up to you to show them what the Motor Girls can do."

"See that your hats are on tight, girls," laughed Cora. "We're going to stir up some little breeze."

They had a long stretch of road in front of them at the time, with no house or vehicle in sight. The conditions could not have been better for a race, and Cora increased her speed gradually until the car was going like the wind.

The car behind had taken up the challenge at once and was also coming along at a tremendous rate. But Belle, venturing sundry peeks behind, announced gleefully that it was not gaining an inch.

"But that isn't enough," Cora flung back. "We want to make them actually drop farther behind. When we've once done that I'll be satisfied. Then we'll slow up and let them catch up to us."

Two minutes later, Belle clapped her hands in delight.

"We've done it! We've done it!" she cried. "They're a quarter of a mile farther back than they were when we started in."

"Oh, how we'll rub it into them!" gurgled Bess.

"Well, enough is as good as a feast," laughed Cora, in great satisfaction. "Now we'll give the lords of creation a chance to explain how they came to let mere girls run away from them."