XI POLITE KIDNAPPERS
XII WHERE LOVE IS DEAF
XIII THE COPPERHEAD
XIV THE REINS TIGHTEN
XV THE FATEFUL DAY
XVI SPARRING FOR TIME
XVII TEARS AND PATRIOTISM
XVIII AFTER THE BOYS LEFT
XIX REAL TRAGEDY
XX THE MOTORCYCLIST AGAIN
XXI THE CHASE
XXII STARTLING DEVELOPMENTS
XXIII THE MIRACLE
XXIV MYSTERY EXPLAINED
XXV TO "CARRY ON"

CHAPTER I

HERO WORSHIP

"Oh, Mollie, please be careful!"

The big car skidded perilously around a sharp curve and chug-chugged
merrily down the road.

"Goodness, I've been careful so long I'm afraid it will grow on me,"
Mollie Billette, sometimes known as "Billy," retorted, a determined set to
her pretty chin. "Someway, I've got to get it out of my system."

The automobile, a big seven-passenger car, belonged to Mollie, and the
four Outdoor Girls, having secured a half-holiday from their work at the
Hostess House, were out for recreation.

As may have been gathered, Mollie was driving. Amy Blackwell, fearful of
an accident, was in the seat beside her, while Grace Ford and Betty
Nelson, their beloved Little Captain, occupied the tonneau and amused
themselves by laughing at Amy's fears.

"Well, but you needn't take it out on us," Amy said in reply to Mollie's
assertion. "If you're going to take many more of those two-wheel turns,
I'm going to get out and walk. Oh, Mol-lie!" The speech ended in a wail,
as Mollie wickedly rounded another curve, jolting Amy half out of her
seat.

"I don't know but what I agree with Amy," drawled Grace, from the tonneau,
helping herself to a chocolate, upon which Betty's eye had just rested
longingly. "I've been bumped around so much I can't tell whether I'm a
girl or a scrambled egg. Now, look what you did!" A sudden lurch of the
big car had sent the box of chocolates to the floor, where its contents
rolled about aggravatingly at their feet. "Come back here, Mollie
Billette, and pick them up. That's the least--"

The rest of the sentence was never uttered, for Mollie brought the car to
so sudden a stop that Grace and Betty both lurched forward and narrowly
escaped bumping their noses on the back of the seat in front of them.

"Sure," said the reckless driver, turning her bright black eyes
expectantly upon them. "Will you promise to give me all I pick up?"

"All you--" Grace was beginning, striving desperately to recover her
breath and her dignity at the same