"Yes, we can stop," her father said, and he was just asking Captain Ben to slow up at the store when a woman ran from it in great excitement, waving her hands and calling aloud:
"Stop! Stop! Oh, wait a minute! Something terrible has happened! Oh, come in! Come in!"
And from the store, out of which the woman had rushed, came a loud hissing sound, while what seemed to be a lot of steam, or a spray of water, floated from the door behind her.
CHAPTER VII
THE STORM
Captain Ben and Daddy Bunker, on the front seat of the automobile, looked in astonishment at the excited woman and at the white spray coming from her little store.
Russ and Rose and Laddie and Violet, four of the six little Bunkers in the rear of the car, were also much surprised, wondering what had happened.
"It must be a fire!" exclaimed Russ, remembering what had happened that day he and the others were playing steamboat in the attic, when the chimney began to smoke in the wrong way.
"What makes the fire?" questioned Vi. It was just like her to ask a question at this critical time.
As for Laddie, he said nothing. But his eyes opened big and round, and perhaps he was trying to think up a riddle about the woman who had rushed from the store with a cloud of steam behind her.