as she saw it.
Grace heard the scream, but failing to understand the meaning of it,
decided it to be some sort of greeting. The little girl waved her arms in
reply. Miss Elting was gesticulating and pointing frantically. The two
girls on the hillside were for the moment paralyzed with fright.

All at once, Grace appeared to perceive her danger. She turned sharply.
There she stood, her frightened face turned toward the oncoming car that
was rapidly approaching her enveloped in a blinding cloud of dust. The
driver and Tommy discovered each other at about the same instant. There
was no time to stop the car.

Suddenly, car and Tommy were swallowed up in the dust cloud.

"Grace is killed!" screamed Margery.

"Yes, oh yes!" wailed Hazel, wringing her hands. "What shall we do?"

Out of the dust cloud hurtled the little white figure. She appeared to
have been doubled up into a large white ball by the car when it struck
her.

The ball rolled from the road, disappearing into the roadside ditch. The
motor car lurched around the curve in the road, zig-zagged past Miss
Elting, then became a rolling cloud of dust again.

CHAPTER II

WHAT HAPPENED TO TOMMY

"Oh-h-h!" moaned Margery. "Poor Tommy has been killed."

In that terrible moment Hazel Holland came nearer to fainting than ever
before in her life. She pulled herself sharply together. Margery was by
this time sobbing hysterically.

"Don't do that," commanded Hazel sharply, "We must do something. Come
quickly!"

Hazel started down the hillside in the trail followed by Tommy during her
break-neck sprint to meet Miss Elting. The latter was already running
toward the scene of the accident. Hazel recalled afterwards having
wondered at the time that a woman could run so fast. Miss Elting's feet
seemed barely to touch the ground. Margery, mustering her courage,
staggered to her feet and followed Hazel at a slower pace, though she,
too, was running.

Hazel was the first to reach the place where Grace had been hurled from
the highway by the car.

"Grace!" she screamed, clambering awkwardly over the fence, dropping down
on the road side. "Oh, Grace, are you killed?"

A pale-faced girl was sitting at the bottom of the dry ditch with both
feet tucked under her. There was a bewildered look on her small face. She
was blinking dazedly.

"Oh, dearie, are you injured?" cried Miss Elting, slipping and sliding
down into the ditch beside the pale-faced Tommy.

"Yeth."