And in a moment the taxi service of Black Rock was at Peter's disposal.
"Carburetor trouble," explained the soiled young man at the wheel briefly, without apology. And with a glance at Peter's bag—
"Are you the man for McGuire's on the six-thirty?"
Peter admitted that he was and the boy swung the door of the tonneau open.
"In here with me, Beth," he said to the girl invitingly.
In a moment, the small machine was whirled around and started in the direction from which it had come, bouncing Peter from side to side and enveloping him in dust. Jim Hagerman's "Lizzie" wasted no time, once it set about doing a thing, and in a few moments from the forest they emerged into a clearing where there were cows in a meadow, and a view of houses. At the second of these, a frame house with a portico covered with vines and a small yard with a geranium bed, all enclosed in a picket fence, the "Lizzie" suddenly stopped and Beth got down.
"Much obliged, Jim," he heard her say.
Almost before Peter had swept off his hat and the girl had nodded, the "Lizzie" was off again, through the village street, and so to a wooden bridge across a tea-colored stream, up a slight grade on the other side, where Jim Hagerman stopped his machine and pointed to a road.
"That's McGuire's—in the pines. They won't let me go no further."
"How much do I owe you?" asked Peter, getting down.