back to see what had happened.

"Tire," said Mollie laconically, forestalling the inevitable questions.
"I knew our luck had been too good to be true. Well," with the air of a
martyr accepting the inevitable, "I suppose there's nothing to do but
get busy and fix it, though, of course, this spoils our chances of
getting to Bensington to-night," Bensington being the town midway
between Deepdale and Bluff Point where they had planned to spend the
night. It was also the only town for miles around that boasted a hotel.

"Oh, I don't know," said Betty in reply to Mollie's gloomy prediction.
"It won't be the first time we've accomplished the impossible."

"But it will soon be dark."

"Goodness! it won't be dark for hours and hours," Betty laughed at her.
"And this oughtn't to take us more than half an hour at the longest.
Come on now, let's get busy."

Thus inspired, the girls "got busy," but they were tired with the long
drive and everything seemed to go wrong. Their usually skillful fingers
fumbled, the tire was "too big or too little or something," to quote
Amy, and at the end of a quarter of an hour's useless struggle their
tempers were worn to a frazzle and they were ready to cry.

"Well, I never had anything act like that before," cried Mollie
irritably. "I'd like to give the person that wrote about the 'depravity
of inanimate things' a medal. The old tire's got a mean disposition,
that's all."

"Well, it isn't the only one," Grace was beginning, when Mollie turned
and glared at her.

"If you mean me--"

"I meant all of us," Grace explained. "As long as we have been going
together, this is the first time I can remember when all of us have been
in the doleful dumps at once."

This brought a reluctant smile even to Mollie's gloomy countenance, and
Betty laughed merrily.

"Perhaps it's just as well," said the Little Captain, adding with a
chuckle: "It's the same way with onions--if everybody eats 'em, no one
can notice the unpleasantness in the other fellow."

This brought a real laugh, and Mollie said fondly:

"I always knew you were a 'philosophiker,' Betty, dear. But," she added,
vindictively kicking the tire that lay at her feet, "all the philosophy
in the world won't put this tire on for us. And we can't very well get
to Bensington on three wheels and a rim."

"No!" cried Grace, sarcastically. "Who would have guessed it?"

Mollie started to retort, but the threatened resumption of hostilities
was cut