“Which one wants to drive with Jack?” asked Andrews.
Neither girl answered, and not as much as by a tremor of the eye-lid did either show how delighted she would have been to sit beside the handsome young man and skim along the road to New York.
Baxter laughed heartily, and Andrews added: “I never dreamed that no one would care to drive with him. I’m sorry, Jack, but you’ll have to go alone.”
“Not if I know it!” retorted Baxter, quickly. “I can’t choose when all are so desirable, but we can cast lots to see who will be my companion.”
The girls thought this most exciting, and when Andrews had shown the slip of paper that would be the lucky draw, and then had folded and shaken the slips well in his cap, the girls drew. As each girl opened her scrap of paper to find it was blank, and then watched the others try, there was great laughter and anxious waiting. Finally Polly opened her slip and found she had drawn the lucky one.
“Ha! Isn’t Jack Baxter lucky, though!” laughed Eleanor. “Not only gets the cleverest girl in the crowd, but the prettiest one, too!”
“Stop your nonsense, Nolla! How many times do I have to tell you to allow me to live in peace, without so much of your chaffing!” exclaimed Polly, impatiently.
Everyone laughed merrily at Polly’s retort, and Baxter looked admiringly at the flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes. He was most gallant in assisting Polly into the “boat” as he called it, and then he jumped in beside her.
Eleanor sat beside Andrews in the other car, and entertained him with a highly colored story of Polly and her home in Pebbly Pit. Before they reached the Fabian home in New York, young Andrews pictured the enormous wealth of “Choko’s Find” gold mine, and the marvellous beauty of the lava jewels found in Rainbow Cliffs on the ranch. To think that one girl should be lucky enough to own both such money-producers!
Shortly after dinner that evening, Mr. Dalken telephoned the girls and told them to come over to his apartment for a party. He explained that he had two nice little boys visiting him, and he was at a loss to know how to entertain them so that they would care to come again, another day. Remembering how well Polly and her friends managed other boys, he felt sure that they could help him now.