And now the moon rose and shed its radiance on them. The fire died down and the night grew deeper and stiller. A chill crept into the air and they snuggled closer under their blankets and slept and slept and dreamed.

Billie dreamed that the black speck she had seen on the road in the distance evolved itself into a man. He was riding a pony. She was sure of it, because in her dream she heard the sound of horse's hoofs as they came nearer. Then the sounds stopped and all was silent again, a long, long silence. She remembered sitting up to see if the horseman had pa.s.sed, but the invisible chains of sleep bound her closely and back she sank into slumber. But always in her dream she felt that some one was near. Had a light been flashed across their faces or was it the rays of the moon which hung in the center of the heavens like a great lantern, illuminating the landscape for miles around?

At last, after slipping into the immeasurable distances of time and s.p.a.ce, which only a dream can compa.s.s, there came the sound of a motor.

For a moment it was quite near, and then gradually it died away and the night was all serene again.

As the dawn crept up, Miss Campbell waked. But she waited, not wishing to disturb her sleeping companions. She lay with her back to the road, her face turned toward the limitless prairies which were now suffused with a rosy light. Then, trailing clouds of glory after him, the sun burst into view over the edge of the world. Never before had Miss Campbell seen a sunrise.

"Girls, girls!" she cried, "you must wake up and see this marvellous sight."

They jumped up and stood in a silent, wondering row as the plains were flooded with light.

Suddenly Billie turned her face toward the road.

Throwing her hands over her head with a gesture of despair, she began to weep bitterly.

"Oh! oh!" she cried, "the Comet, my beloved Comet! He has been stolen!"

CHAPTER VII.-BARNEY M'GEE.

It was almost as much of a shock to Miss Campbell and the others to see Billie so unstrung as to find the Comet stolen.

The young girl's feeling for her car was of a very real character, and if the Comet had been a favorite animal or a human being even, she could not have been more distressed.

"Billie, my darling, you must not give way so," cried her cousin, putting her arms gently around Billie's neck. "We shall find the Comet, I'm sure."

"I never dreamed anyone would take him," sobbed Billie. "I thought he would be quite safe in this lonely place. It was stupid of me to have left him unprotected like that all night long."

Her friends, who had been subdued and silent in the presence of her grief could hardly refrain from smiling at the notion of Billie's sitting up all night to protect the automobile from kidnappers. Billie, her normal, cheerful self, was the most sensible person in the world; but Billie, the prey of tears and doubts, was just as unreasonable as any other weeping, unhappy girl.

While she had her cry out on Miss Helen's shoulder with her devoted Nancy hanging over her, Mary and Elinor began to look about them.

"The robber must have been a chauffeur, Elinor," said Mary, "and a very good one, too, because he not only knew how to run the Comet but to repair it."

"What are we going to do?" asked Elinor irrelevantly.

The two girls stood thinking. The robber had not taken their suitcases which they had been obliged to unstrap and open the night before; nor had he touched their camping outfit. Only the motor had been filched from them while they slept.

"I think the first thing to do is to make ourselves comfortable," Mary remarked as her eyes fell on the alcohol stove. "Then we'll get breakfast and Billie will be more cheerful. Perhaps someone will come along by then."

As soon as Billie noticed her friends arranging their tumbled hair and washing their faces from the bottle of drinking water they always carried with them, she stopped crying at once.

"I'm awfully ashamed," she exclaimed, as embarra.s.sed as a boy caught in the act of shedding tears. "I'm afraid I've been a fearful cry-baby, as if weeping could do any good. Here, let's wash them off and get busy,"

she added, trying to smile while she poured some of the water over her pocket handkerchief and bathed her red eyes.

"Don't you care, Billie," cried Nancy. "I was glad to see you a little human like the rest of us. And it was a dreadful blow."

Mary, with her unfailing desire to make everybody comfortable under the most trying circ.u.mstances, began presently to prepare coffee over the alcohol stove, and the fragrance of the bean did seem to comfort them somewhat in their trying position. When the most optimistic person in a party becomes the prey of wretchedness, the others usually pretend a cheerfulness they by no means feel. But now that Billie had regained her composure, Miss Campbell's spirits began to sink.

She made a pitiful little toilet with a teacupful of drinking water and her eau de cologne. She arranged her snow white hair in its usual three-finger puffs, pinned on her lace jabot with great care and then surveyed the far-stretching country with an uneasy glance.

"If one robber is around another is sure to be," she began. "Oh, dear, oh, dear! if we had only never started on this madman's journey. Your father was a foolish fellow ever to have consented, Billie. What are we but five weak helpless women lost in the wilderness?"

"No, we are not," protested Billie. "Indeed we are not any of those things, Cousin Helen. I was for a moment when I found we had lost the Comet, but I know we shall get the Comet back and everything will be all right, I don't yet know how, but I certainly don't intend to give up hope at this stage of the game."

"First breakfast," said Mary, spreading out the lunch cloth and supplying each person with an orange, a soft boiled egg and a cup of coffee. "First a little nourishment and then see how much more hopeful you'll all feel."

It was hardly what might be called a cheerful meal and it was quickly dispatched especially by Billie in whose mind a plan was already formulating.

"Nancy," she said to her friend who had followed her to the edge of the grove and was standing silently beside her, "where are your field gla.s.ses?"

The gla.s.ses were promptly produced from Nancy's suitcase.

"Do you think," Billie continued, "that I could climb one of those pine trees? I believe if I could get to one of the upper branches, I could see for miles around the country. I might even see the Comet."

"You know Miss Campbell would never consent, Billie," Nancy objected, "even if you could shin up that slippery pine tree."

"Just you engage Cousin Helen in conversation for five minutes and I'll engage to do the rest. It's really a matter of costume, anyhow."

So saying, Billie calmly slipped off her corduroy skirt and coat, revealing herself in pongee bloomers and a pongee blouse. Then she kicked off her russet leather pumps and hung the long strap of the field gla.s.ses over her shoulder.

The tree she had chosen to climb was the tallest one in the group, and, as is the case with pine trees, it had not put forth any substantial limbs until more than half-way up. But the trunk was scarred and corrugated with the marks of former limbs that had died, and Billie used these as footholds as she shinned up the tree.

Nancy had not attempted to engage Miss Campbell in conversation. She stood rooted to the spot, fascinated while Billie worked her way up and finally swung herself into a fork where the big stone pine divided and became as two trees. Then, choosing the next largest branch, she climbed on as nimbly as a sailor in the rigging of a ship. Nancy admired her friend's graceful and agile figure, and occasionally through the foliage, she caught glimpses of Billie's earnest face. Her gray eyes were filled with the fire of her resolution, and her mouth, in which sweetness and determination were blended, was closed tightly. Not a lock of her fine light brown hair had been disturbed by the climb and the two side rolls were as smooth and glossy as silk.

All this while Miss Campbell and the others had been busy storing away the breakfast dishes which could not under any circ.u.mstances be washed.

It was various degrees between seven and half-past by the several watches in the party and the sun had mounted the Eastern heavens and was shedding its glory over the great plain.

"Someone must surely be coming this way soon--" Miss Campbell was saying when a jolly voice singing an Irish song broke in on the silence.

"I had a sister Helen, she was younger than I am, She had so many sweethearts, she had to deny 'em; But as for meself, I haven't so many, And the Lord only knows, I'd be thankful for any."

A man on horseback immediately hove into sight around a bend in the road. He was long and lean and brown with eyes as mildly blue as the summer sky above them. The thin lips of his large mouth had a nervously humorous twitch at the corners, and his yellow hair, much longer than men wear their hair in the East, could be seen underneath his sombrero.

He wore a blue flannel shirt with a bright scarlet tie, velveteen trousers and long cowhide boots which extended beyond the knees. He was, in fact, a cowboy. The girls were certain of it although he did not wear the fantastic sheepskin trousers they had seen in pictures. But he had every other mark of the cowboy, the lean Texas horse, the high-built saddle, much decorated, and the jingling spurs on his high-heeled boots.

Giving the belated motorists one grand, sweeping, comprehensive glance, he was about to amble on politely, since it was none of his business to show interest in things that did not concern him, when Miss Campbell rushed dramatically into the road and stretched out her arms with gestures of distress.

"Oh, I beg of you, sir, don't leave us," she cried. Billie in the garb of Peter Pan watching from the tree tops could not restrain her smiles; and Nancy from behind the same tree giggled audibly.

"Excuse me, ma'am, I didn't know you were in any trouble," said the cowboy reining in his horse and lifting off his sombrero. "I'm Barney McGee, at your service, ma'am. What can I do for you?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "I'm Barney McGee, at your service, ma'am."]

"Our motor car broke down here last night and it was too dark to repair it. We were obliged to stay here all night. And while we slept, a robber stole it. We are simply stranded on the road. What can we do?"