missed running over a persistent barking
dog. They reached Freedenburg, and went to the hotel, leaving the auto
at a public garage near by.

"Oh, for a good bath, and a hot cup of tea!" exclaimed Mollie, for the
latter part of the ride had been rather hot and dusty. "Then we'll feel
like new girls."

The services of a maid were at their disposal in their rooms, and they
were soon making themselves fresh for the dinner that was shortly to be
served. As Mollie let down her long hair the maid uttered an
exclamation:

"Excuse me, Miss, for remarking it," she said, "but you have lovely
hair."

"We all think so," added Betty.

"It isn't so very nice," spoke Mollie. "I am hoping it will get
thicker."

"It's lovely!" the maid insisted. "I haven't seen any as nice--not since
a strange girl stopped here one night some time ago, and I helped her do
hers up. Hers was nearly to the floor when she stood up. And it was just
the color of yours. She had a scar on her forehead, I remember--a recent
one, and I had to be careful of it as I combed her hair."

"A cut?" asked Betty, looking at her friends curiously.

"Yes, Miss. She said she had fallen out of a tree."

"A tree!" The four girls uttered this together.

"Why, yes," and the maid seemed surprised. "I suppose she was
playing--she said she was very fond of sports--and she was just the age
to enjoy them."

"Yes, yes!" exclaimed Betty eagerly. "Did she have--I mean what was her
name--or could you describe her to us? We have a reason for asking."

"Why, I don't recall that she gave me her name," said the maid slowly,
"but I can tell you how she looked."

Then, to the surprise of Betty and her chums, the hotel maid gave a good
description of the girl they had seen fall out of the tree some time
before--the girl who had so strangely disappeared when they went after
aid for her.

"It's the same one!" cried Betty, and then she told the maid of the
coincidence.

CHAPTER XII

A DISABLED CAR

"Where did she go?"

"Didn't she leave her name--or anything?"

"Did she seem all right?"

"Did she tell why she was in the tree?"

With these questions the girls fairly bombarded the mystified maid when
they had established, beyond all reasonable doubt, that the girl they
had aided and the one at the hotel were one and the same.

"I don't know where she went," the maid finally managed to say, "and I
don't know her name. It may be on the register, though."

"We'll