e crowds closed in
around the finishing runners, so that from the cars or club house it
was impossible to see more than a solid mass of persons.

"Is he dead?" boys were asking.

"Who was the ghost?" demanded others.

"She ought to be shot," insisted some of the academy boys.

"It was bad enough, to be on the last lap, but to have a ghost shoot
out like that would finish any fellow's heart," declared the boy at
Cleo's ear. "I hope they teach her a lesson."

"Grace!" Madaline exclaimed. "Did you see that dress? It was the same
we saw on the queer girl who stared at us so! Maybe--she's crazy or
something. I'm sure I could tell that was the same white dress with
the black winders."

"Yes," declared Cleo to the other girls, "we saw her yesterday, and she
was with the oddest-looking woman."

"Oh, I'll bet she's the girl they call Mary! Lives somewhere in the
mountain, and has that funny old woman with her!" declared Lucille.
"If she isn't crazy she's very queer. And however did she get in that
line without being seen?"

"Why, she just jumped from behind the hedge," said Angela Morgan, who
was driving the car slowly out of the heavy traffic, "and I have seen
her with that foreign woman down by the springs, always hunting
flowers. They are a queer pair."

"Do you think the crowd will be rough with her?" asked Cleo anxiously.
"I never saw such eyes as that child looked out of. Like eyes that
looked and couldn't see, sort of dazed," explained Cleo.

"Well, we can't hear who won or what happened until some of the crowd
passes out," said Lalia, "If Bob or Andy didn't win I'll be just sick
in bed."

"And if anything happened to that queer little girl I'll have more than
a mere collapse," added Madaline, who had been almost a silent
spectator of the whole proceedings.

Just then there was a break in the line of cars, and directly in front
of the Morgan machine dashed the little girl in her white dress, her
two big braids flopping up and down on her slight shoulders.

And before anyone could reach the roadway, she had again slipped behind
the dense hedge and was lost to view.

"Well, I never!" gasped Cleo.

"We'll have to find that woodland fairy some day," declared Lucille,
and just then they heard that Bob had won the race.

CHAPTER IV

THE EAGLE'S FEATHER

It took but a few days for the visitors to become so well acquainted in
their surroundings that even the generous assistance of Lalia and