“This is the first time I ever ran over anything,” retorted Bess indignantly. “I guess I know how to drive a car!”
“Well, it won’t be the last time you run over somethin’ if you scoot along like I seen you just now,” went on the owner of the limping fowl. “I want pay for my chicken, or I’ll have th’ law on ye,” and she planted herself determinedly in front of the now stationary car.
“Very well,” answered Bess, not wishing to argue with such a character. “Here is fifty cents. The chicken is a small one, and that’s all it’s worth. Besides it is hardly hurt at all.”
“It’s wuth seventy-five cents, ef it ain’t a dollar!” stormed the woman, as she accepted the coin that the girl handed her. “I’ve a good notion to——”
But her further words were lost, for Bess turned on the power, threw in the clutch, shifted the gear lever, and was off down the road.
“Adventure number two,” she remarked grimly. “I hope it isn’t three times and out. Patrick’s clover works by opposite, I guess,” but she drove along, her high spirits not a whit repressed by what had happened.
For Bess was not a girl easily daunted, as those of you who have read the previous volumes of this series know. She was almost the equal of her chum, Cora Kimball, was Bess Robinson. In my first book, entitled “The Motor Girls,” Cora Kimball, the tall, handsome, dark-haired daughter of Mrs. Grace Kimball, and, likewise, the well-beloved sister of Jack Kimball, had first secured her auto. It was a four cylinder, touring machine, capable of good speed, and the color was Cora’s special choosing—a handsome maroon. The story dealt with a mystery of the road, and told how Cora successfully solved it, in spite of the efforts of Ida Giles and Sid Wilcox to make trouble. As her guests Cora had, on many runs of her car, the Robinson twins, Walter Pennington, Jack’s college chum, and Ed Foster. The latter was one of the chief figures in the road mystery, for one day he suddenly missed his wallet, containing money and negotiable securities to the amount of twenty thousand dollars. A little later the pocketbook, with the money missing, was found in the tool box of Cora’s car.
Then there followed a “whirlwind” of excitement, which did not end until those responsible for the taking of the money had been discovered and the cash and papers returned. Among other troubles Cora and her friends had to contend with the meanness of Sid Wilcox and the jealousy of Ida Giles.
In the second volume of the series, called “The Motor Girls on a Tour; or, Keeping a Strange Promise,” there was related how Cora and her friends were instrumental, after making a strange promise, in restoring to a little cripple a long-lost table, containing a will. How the hunt for the strange piece of furniture, with a secret drawer, was made, while the girls were on a tour, how the Robinson twins managed their car, which they had secured in the meanwhile, and how Jack Kimball also succeeded in getting a runabout—all this is set down in the book. Paul Hastings, a young chauffeur, and his pretty sister Hazel, also had their parts to play, and well they did.
Now it was coming on summer again, and, after much planning and discussing, the Robinson twins and their mother had decided on a seashore cottage. They hoped that Cora Kimball could be induced to go with them, and, if Cora did go, why, of course, it meant that Jack would come down, occasionally, or, perhaps, oftener. And Ed and Walter might also happen to drop in—which would be very pleasant.