[THE GREAT AUTO MYSTERY]
I.
With a little laugh of sheer light-heartedness on her lips and a twinkle in her blue eyes, Marguerite Melrose bound on a grotesque automobile mask, and stuffed the last strand of her recalcitrant hair beneath her veil. The pretty face was hidden from mouth to brow; and her curls were ruthlessly imprisoned under a cap held in place by the tightly tied veil.
"It's perfectly hideous, isn't it?" she demanded of her companions.
Jack Curtis laughed.
"Well," he remarked, quizzically, "it's just as well that we _know_ you are pretty."
"We could never discover it as you are now," added Charles Reid. "Can't see enough of your face to tell whether you are white or black."
The girl's red lips were pursed into a pout, which ungraciously hid her white teeth, as she considered the matter seriously.
"I think I'll take it off," she said at last.
"Don't," Curtis warned her. "On a good road The Green Dragon only hits the tall places."