usually acted as though she were the
moving spirit of the pair. But, really, Jessie Norwood was the more
practical, and it was usually her initiative that started the chums on
a new thing and always her "sticktoitiveness" that carried them
through to the end.

Bonwit Boulevard, beautifully laid out, shaded with elms, with a grass
path in the middle, two oiled drives, and with a bridle path on one
side, was one of the finest highways in the state. At this hour of the
afternoon, before the return rush of the auto-commuters from the city,
the road was almost empty.

The chums chatted of many things as they went along. But Jessie came
back each time to radio. She had been very much interested in the
wonder of it and in the possibility of rigging the necessary aerials
and setting up a receiving set at her own house.

"We can get the books to tell us how to do it, and we can buy the wire
for the antenna to-day," she said.

"'Antenna'! Is it an insect?" demanded Amy. "Sounds crawly."

"Those are the aerials----"

"Listen!" interrupted Amy Drew.

A sound--a shrill and compelling voice--reached their ears. Amy's hand
clutched at Jessie's arm and held her back. There was nobody in sight,
and the nearest house was some way back from the road.

"What is it?" murmured Jessie.

"Help! He-e-elp!" repeated the voice, shrilly.

"Radio!" muttered Amy, sepulchrally. "It is a voice out of the air."

There positively was nobody in sight. But Jessie Norwood was
practical. She knew there was a street branching off the boulevard
just a little way ahead. Besides, she heard the throbbing of an
automobile engine.

"Help!" shrieked the unknown once more.

"It is a girl," declared Jessie, beginning to run and half dragging
Amy Drew with her. "She is in trouble! We must help her!"

A ROAD MYSTERY

CHAPTER II

A ROAD MYSTERY

Like a great many other beautiful streets, there was a
poverty-stricken section, if sparsely inhabited, just behind Bonwit
Boulevard. A group of shacks and squatters' huts down in a grassy
hollow, with a little brook flowing through it to the lake, and woods
beyond. It would not have been an unsightly spot if the marks of the
habitation of poor and careless folk had been wiped away.

But at the moment Jessie Norwood and her chum, Amy Drew, darted around
from the broad boulevard into the narrow lane that led down to this
poor hamlet, neither of the girls remembered "Dogtown," as the group
of