"I didn't know I sighed," said Grace gloomily. "But it wouldn't be any wonder if I did. I feel as if I were made up of them—sighs, I mean."
Betty was silent a moment, then she asked suddenly:
"When does your father expect to hear from Washington?"
"Not before the end of the week, anyway. And by that time," Grace paused to control the trembling of her lips, "nobody knows what may have happened. For all we know Will may be—dead."
CHAPTER VIII
RED RAGS
"Well, we've been making pretty good speed for the last three hours," said Mollie, taking first one hand, then the other, from the steering wheel and stretching her cramped fingers experimentally. "Now if nothing else happens—"
The sound of an explosion cut short the rest of the sentence, and she put on the brakes, at the same time tooting a signal to Betty. The latter stopped her car and came running back to see what had happened.
"Tire," said Mollie laconically, forestalling the inevitable questions. "I knew our luck had been too good to be true. Well," with the air of a martyr accepting the inevitable, "I suppose there's nothing to do but get busy and fix it, though, of course, this spoils our chances of getting to Bensington to-night," Bensington being the town midway between Deepdale and Bluff Point where they had planned to spend the night. It was also the only town for miles around that boasted a hotel.