venture, a visit that none of the girls ever would be likely to
forget.
They rapidly rolled through the city and in a little while were out in
the country, where the land flattened down into a rolling prairie,
broken here and there by groups of slender trees and farm buildings.
The snow began to sweep past them in flurries shortly after they cleared
the city limits. Ruth stopped the automobile and called upon the girls
to assist her in putting on the storm curtains. When they had finished
the car was entirely enclosed, a heavy curtain taking the place of the
wind shield which the driver had turned down at its middle.
"Isn't this comfy?" chirped Mollie.
It did not prove so "comfy" after all, the way Ruth accelerated the
speed, sending the car careening ahead at a high rate.
"Olive," said Bab, mustering courage to introduce a subject that was
near to her heart.
"Yes, dear."
"Would you--would you think me too personal if I asked you to tell us
the story of the buried treasure of Treasureholme?" she asked
hesitatingly.
"Not at all."
"Oh, do tell us," urged Mollie and Grace in one voice.
"I've been just dying to hear about it ever since I first learned there
was such a place as Treasureholme. Are there real ghosts there?"
questioned Mollie.
"No; no ghosts. But there are memories. Listen, girls, and I will tell
you all I know about it," said Olive, settling herself to relate the
tale that was to prove of such fascinating interest to the "Automobile
Girls."
CHAPTER VI
THE WRECK OF MR. A. BUBBLE
"BURIED treasures are such ravishing mysteries," observed Mollie, while
Olive was mentally arranging her facts. "I never thought I should
actually be face to face with one."
"I am sure it must be a grand old place," volunteered Barbara.
"In reality, it is very big and bare," smiled Olive. "But I love every
foot of the old place where I have lived all my life except when I have
been away to school and where my ancestors have lived for oh, ever so
many years."
Olive's eyes filled with tears. Barbara stole a groping hand under the
robe and clasped one of Olive's. The latter pulled herself sharply
together. She gave Bab a grateful look. The sympathy in that gentle hand
clasp had meant more than words to her. Perhaps in that one brief moment
the two girls came to understand each other better than in all the days
that had passed since their first meeting at the opera.
"You know we fully expec
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