Sahwah looked petrified. Margery Anderson! "You"ve made a mistake," she said. "I"m not Margery Anderson."
"Don"t tell lies, my dear," said Mrs. Watterson. "You are Margery Anderson." And she drew the handkerchief from Sahwah"s pocket and held it before her eyes with a triumphant flourish. Sahwah was so overcome with astonishment that she could not speak for a moment and it was just as well that she could not, or she might have explained how she came to be carrying Margery"s handkerchief and that would have revealed the whereabouts of the real Margery.
Mrs. Watterson was triumphantly quoting from the newspaper article: "Tall, slender, brown eyes and hair, one upper front tooth shorter than the remainder of the row--"
Sahwah, while actually resembling Margery no more than red-haired Hinpoha did, yet fitted the description perfectly!
An idea had come into Sahwah"s mind. She abandoned her half-formed plan of jumping from the car the moment it should slow up for any reason.
Since these people insisted that she was Margery Anderson in spite of all she could say to the contrary, well and good, there was so much less chance of Margery"s being discovered. After all the trouble they had taken so far to return the girl to her mother it would never do for her to betray her. So she sat silent under Mrs. Watterson"s fire of cross questioning as to where she had been since running away, which Mrs. Watterson took for conclusive proof that she was Margery.
"Did you say my--my uncle was in Chicago?" Sahwah asked at last.
Mrs. Watterson replied affirmatively. Sahwah was inwardly jubilant but the expression of her face never altered. It was all right as long as they were taking her to Chicago. Once confronted with Margery"s uncle, if he were there, the truth would come out and she would be free to go as she pleased. Then she could go directly to the Carrie Wentworth Inn and await the arrival of the others. She chuckled to herself, as she pictured the meeting between this man and woman and Margery"s uncle and their discomfiture when they discovered that they had bagged the wrong bird. Sahwah is keen on humorous situations.
But how was Nyoda to know that she was safe in Chicago? She might spend endless time looking for her, nearly wild with anxiety, thinking some misfortune had befallen her. Sahwah puzzled awhile and then her originality came to her rescue. Somewhere on this very road Nyoda had vanished the night before, and she herself had walked, as she supposed, in a straight line from the gate. She did not know that the light of the strange automobile she had seen from the barn had lured her across to an entirely different road. Well then, she reflected, it was reasonable to believe that Nyoda would be making inquiries for her along this road. Very well, she would drop a clue. With the swiftness of chain lightning she whipped her little address book out of her pocket and wrote on a leaf:
"To those interested:
Picked up by tourists. On way to Carrie Wentworth Inn, Chicago.
Sarah Ann Brewster."
For obvious reasons she made no mention of having been mistaken for Margery Anderson.
She tied the address book in the corner of her green veil while Mrs.
Watterson looked on curiously. Then she tied the veil around her hat to give it weight and threw it out of the car into the road just in front of a house. The green veil shone like a headlight and could not fail to attract attention. Thus someone would get the information that would eventually reach Nyoda. Then, Sahwah-like, having overcome her perplexities, she settled down to enjoy her trip. Surely a worse fate might have befallen her, she decided, after being lost from her companions, than to wake up and find herself being hurried toward the city which had been her destination in the first place.
At that time Sahwah thought that the fates were kind to her, but ever since she has declared that they had a special grudge against her in making her miss the spectacular finish of our trip to Chicago. Sahwah, who was the only one who would really have enjoyed that exciting ride, was doomed to a personally conducted tour. I consider it unfair myself.
But was there a single feature about the whole trip that was as it should have been?
Sahwah"s ride to Chicago was tame enough although the circ.u.mstances of it were rather melodramatic. She did not make any thrilling escape such as jumping from the moving car onto a pa.s.sing train the way they do in the movies, or shrieking that she was being abducted and, as a result, being rescued by a handsome young man who became infatuated with her on the spot and declared himself willing to wait the weary years until she was grown up, when he could claim her for his own. That was the trouble with our adventures all the way through; while they were thrilling enough at the time they were happening, they lacked the quality that is in all book adventures, that of having any permanent after-effects.
While there were several men mixed up in our trip none of us came home with our fate sealed, that is, none of us but----
But I am rambling again. It is as hard for me to keep on the main track of my story as it was for the Glow-worm to stay on the sign-posted highway. If I am not careful I will be telling the end of it somewhere along the middle, and that would be rather confusing for the reader who likes to turn to the back of the book to see how things come out before beginning the story. Nyoda said I should put a notice in the frontispiece saying that the end was on page so-and-so instead of the last chapter, and save such readers the trouble of hunting for it. As it is, I am afraid the last chapter will be crowded with afterthought incidents which I forgot to put in as I went along, and which should really be part of the story. But after all, I suppose it is immaterial in what order they come, for, by the time the reader has finished the book she will have them all, which is no more than she would have done if they had all been fitted together in the proper order. And she always has the privilege of rearranging them to suit herself.
Mr. Watterson, as well as his wife, had doubtless been picturing to himself the dramatic moment in Mr. Anderson"s office, when his niece should be turned over to him. He began to look important and self- conscious as they entered the city. Both he and his wife looked at the people around them in the street with a you-don"t-know-whom-we-have-in- this-car expression, while Sahwah put on a very doleful countenance.
Secretly she could hardly wait for the meeting to take place. They crossed the city and began threading their way through the down-town streets, crowded with the traffic of a busy week afternoon. Mr.
Watterson, thinking of the coming interview on Michigan Avenue, failed to notice that a traffic policeman was waving peremptorily for him to back up from a crowded corner. The result was that he became involved in the line of vehicles which was coming through from the cross street and rammed an electric coupe containing two ladies and a poodle. The coupe tipped over onto the curb and the ladies were badly shaken and the poodle was cut by flying gla.s.s, or the ladies were cut by the flying poodle, I forget which. Mr. Watterson and his party emerged from the crush under the escort of a police officer who directed the finish of the tour. Their destination was the police station.
CHAPTER XII.
"What a tale of adventure we will have to tell Nyoda when we find her,"
said Gladys, as the Striped Beetle followed its nose Rochesterward. "It will make Sahwah green with envy. She is always so eager for adventure.
And there never was such a combination as we have experienced. First, we picked up a girl in trouble, then we got quarantined; next, we lost our trunk and followed a man all the way to Indianapolis, thinking that he had it, which he didn"t; then we were robbed of all our money and the Striped Beetle at one fell swoop, and were stranded on a country road without a cent or a drop of gas and had to spend the night in the car. There certainly never was such a chapter of events. The Count for the next Ceremonial will be a regular book.
"I wonder what the girls in Rochester have been doing all this time while they have been waiting for us?"
"Migwan"s writing poetry, of course," said Hinpoha, "and Sahwah"s getting into mischief and Nakwisi"s staring into s.p.a.ce through her spy- gla.s.s. It"s easy enough to guess what they are doing."
"Well, anyway, they know why we were delayed," said Chapa. "You got a second wire off to Nyoda before the storm?"
"Yes," said Gladys, "I sent it right after I wired for money."
Hinpoha sat silent for a long time. "A penny for your thoughts," said Gladys. "I can"t help thinking about the scarf," said Hinpoha. "I brought it along because I was afraid something would happen to it if I left it behind, and here we had to lose it on the way. I would rather lose anything than that." And she sighed and looked so woe-begone that it quite affected the spirits of the others.
"Nyoda can help us find the trunk," said Gladys confidently, thinking with relief as they neared Rochester that Nyoda would soon be at the helm of the expedition again. This thought filled them all with so much cheer that even Hinpoha brightened up. She ceased thinking about the scarf and looked at the flying landscape.
"As a sight-seeing trip this has been somewhat of a failure," she said.
"And I had intended making so many sketches of the interesting things we saw on the way to put into the Count, but the only thing that comes to my mind now is the picture of ourselves, always standing around wondering what to do next."
"You might draw a picture of the pain you had from eating green apples," suggested Chapa.
"That pain was about the only real thing about the whole trip," said Hinpoha. "All the rest seems like a dream."
Hinpoha began idly sketching herself running away from a large apple on legs which was pursuing her. And that is the only picture we have of the whole trip!
The girls got to Rochester about noon and went immediately to Number 43 Main Street. Mrs. Moffat came to the door and when she saw the girls in tan suits and green veils she closed it all but a crack.
"My rooms are all taken," she said, coldly.
"We don"t want rooms, we want someone who is staying here," said Gladys. "Is Miss Kent here with three girls?"
"No, she isn"t," said Mrs. Moffat "They came here as bold as bra.s.s, but you can bet they didn"t stay long after I found out about them. Do you belong to her company, too? You"re dressed just like the rest of them."
"Why yes, we belong to her party," said Gladys, bewildered beyond words at this reception. "Will you please tell us what--"
But Mrs. Moffat closed the door in their faces with a resounding bang and no amount of ringing would induce her to open it again. The girls were simply staggered. What could be the meaning of the woman"s words?
"You can bet they didn"t stay long after I found out about them." After she found out what about us? When had we left the house and where were we now? They stood around the Striped Beetle irresolutely.
"If she only hadn"t shut the door in our faces before we could ask some more questions!" said Gladys. "I don"t suppose it would do any good to try again; she"d do the same thing a second time."
Just then a small boy came whistling down the street and Gladys had an idea. Getting the girls quickly into the car she drove down to meet him. When they met him they were well away from the house. Gladys called him to her. "I"ll give you ten cents," she said, "if you"ll go to Number 43 Main Street and ask the lady where the girls in the tan suits, who stayed at her house, went when they left. Maybe you had better go around to the back door," she added.
"Give me the ten cents first," said the boy, squinting his eyes shrewdly.
"Not until you bring back the answer," said Gladys. "I won"t go unless you give me a nickel first," he maintained, firmly. Gladys gave him the nickel and he departed in the direction of Number 43. Still keeping out of sight of the house, they awaited his return. In five minutes he was back.
"She says she doesn"t know where they went," he said, speaking in an unnecessarily loud voice, the way young boys do. "She says she doesn"t keep track of rogues. Where"s the other nickel?"
Stupefied, Gladys gave it to him and he ran off down the street "What did he say?" she gasped. "She doesn"t keep track of rogues? She turned them out of the house when she found out about them? Whatever has happened? What made her think the girls were rogues? And where did they go?"
They were standing almost within a stone"s throw of Number 22 Spring Street, where we had gone from Mrs. Moffat"s, but, of course, there was no sign on the house to tell them we had been there.
"Well," said Gladys, "they were here in Rochester, that much we know, and perhaps they are here yet. Somebody must have seen them. Where do you think we had better go to inquire?"