huts was locally called. The real estate men who exploited Roselawn
and Bonwit Boulevard as the most aristocratic suburban section of New
Melford, never spoke of Dogtown.

"What do you suppose is the matter, Jess?" panted Amy.

"It's a girl in trouble! Look at that!"

The chums did not have to go even as far as the brow of the hill
overlooking the group of houses before mentioned. The scene of the
action of this drama was not a hundred yards off the boulevard.

A big touring car stood in the narrow lane, headed toward the broad
highway from which Jessie and Amy had come. It was a fine car, and the
engine was running. A very unpleasant looking, narrow-shouldered woman
sat behind the steering wheel, but was twisted around in her seat so
that she could look behind her.

In the lane was another woman. Both were expensively dressed, though
not tastefully; and this second woman was as billowy and as generously
proportioned as the one behind the wheel was lean. She was red-faced,
too, and panted from her exertions.

Those exertions, it was evident at once to Jessie and Amy, were
connected with the capturing and the subsequent restraining of a very
active and athletic girl of about the age of the chums. She was quite
as red-faced as the fleshy woman, and she was struggling with all her
might to get away, while now and then she emitted a shout for help
that would have brought a crowd in almost no time in any place more
closely built up.

"Oh! What is the matter?" repeated Amy.

"Bring her along, Martha!" exclaimed the woman already in the
motor-car. "Here come a couple of rubber-necks."

This expression, to Jessie's mind, marked the driver of the
automobile for exactly what she was. Nor did the face of the fat woman
impress the girl as being any more refined.

As for the girl struggling with the second woman--the one called
"Martha"--she was not very well dressed. But she looked neat and
clean, and she certainly was determined not to enter the automobile if
she could help it. Jessie doubted, although she had at first thought
it possible, if either of these women were related to the girl they
seemed so determined to capture.

"What are they--road pirates? Kidnapers?" demanded Amy. "What?"

The two chums stopped by the machine. They really did not know what to
do. Should they help the screaming girl? Or should they aid the fleshy
woman? It might be that the girl had run away from perfectly good
guardians. Only, to