"I think the best thing to do is to follow them as fast as we can," said Sahwah.
"I think so too," said Nyoda.
Puzzled as we were about Gladys's strange behavior, we were yet relieved of all anxiety about the Striped Beetle and its passengers. The girls were on their way to Chicago by way of Ligonier, the way we had planned in the beginning, and had undoubtedly not fallen by the wayside. We did wait long enough in Ft. Wayne to buy Margery a suit and veil just like ours and were surprised and gratified to find that we could get a suit exactly like ours down to the last button.
"Who do you suppose the girl in blue is with Gladys?" we asked each other, as we took the road again. But, of course, no one could answer this.
I was sitting in the front seat beside Nyoda. We had not gone very far on the way when I saw her knit her brows in a frown and heard her mutter to herself, "I thought we had lost you!" At the same time she increased the speed of the car. Naturally, I looked ahead in the direction in which she was looking, but there was nothing in sight. Then I looked behind. About a hundred yards behind us was the red roadster with the Frog calmly sitting at the wheel. How did Nyoda know he was there? She had not turned around since we had left Ft. Wayne.
"Have you an eye in the back of your head?" I asked, curiously.
"No, but I have one in the back of my collar," she answered, trying to hide her annoyance in a joke. "I just had a feeling he was there," she added.
This time I actually had a chill when I saw him. There was something terrifying in that figure always following us, never coming any nearer, never saying anything, but yet, never losing sight of us. Those mask-like goggles and the cap he wore pulled low over his face made him look like one of the creatures you see in a bad dream.
We had spent so much time in Ft. Wayne looking for a suit for Margery that it was four o'clock before we finally got under way. The morning had been fine, but the afternoon was misty and chilly. It must have rained not long before, for the road was muddy. We did not make such very good time, for the car began to act badly, and it was soon evident that something was wrong. We began to run slowly. Involuntarily, I glanced around to see how much the roadster was gaining on us. It had slowed down too and was going at exactly our pace. By this time the other girls could not help noticing that it was following us. Margery crouched in the seat and clung to Sahwah's arm. She was sure it was her uncle after her, and then I had to explain that the Frog had been following us all the way from Toledo, before we had taken her in.
We had expected to make Ligonier in a very short time and reach South Bend before night, but as things turned out we never got there at all. Somewhere between Ligonier and Goshen, at a little town called Wellsville, the poor Glow-worm must have been taken with awful pains in its insides, for it began to pant and gasp like a creature in misery, and utter little squeals of distress. There was nothing left to do but hunt up the one garage in town, which fortunately had a repair shop in connection with it, and get someone to look at the engine. I don't pretend to know anything about the machinery of the car, so I haven't the slightest idea what was the matter, but the man talked knowingly about magnetos and carburetors and said he could have the trouble fixed by eight o'clock in the evening. We were vexed that it should take so long, because we had expected to make South Bend early in the evening, but there was no help for it, so we repaired to the hotel next door—"hotel" by courtesy, for it was nothing more than a wayside inn—for supper.