own and nearly all its
inhabitants were in bed.

"Aren't there any speed regulations in this part of the world, Hugh?"
Ruth suddenly inquired.

But she was too late. At this instant everyone in her car heard a
loud shout.

"Hold up there! Stop!" A figure on a bicycle darted out of a dark alley
in hot pursuit of them.

"Go it, Ruth!" Hugh whispered. But Ruth shook her head.

"No," she answered. "We must face the music." Ruth put on her stop brake
and her car slowed down.

"What do you mean," cried a wrathful voice, "tearing through a peaceful
town like this, lickitty-split, as though there were no folks on earth
but you. You just come along to the station with me! You'll find out,
pretty quick, what twenty-five miles an hour means in this here town."

"Let me explain matters to you," Hugh protested. "It is all a mistake."

"I ain't never arrested anybody for speeding yet that they ain't told me
it was just a mistake," fumed the policeman. "But you will git a chance
to tell your story to the chief of police. You're just wasting good time
talkin' to me. I ain't got a mite of patience with crazy automobilists."

"Don't take us all to the station house, officer!" Hugh pleaded. "Just
take me along, and let the rest of the party go on back to Washington.
It's awfully late. You surely wouldn't keep these young ladies."

"It's the lady that's a-runnin' the car, ain't it? She's the one that is
under arrest," said the policeman obstinately.

Ruth had not spoken since her automobile was stopped.

She had a lump in her throat, caused partly by anger and partly by
embarrassment and fright. Then, too, Ruth was wondering what her father
would say. In the years she had been running her automobile, over all the
thousands of miles she had traveled, Ruth had never before been stopped
for breaking the speed laws. She had always promised Mr. Stuart to be
careful. And one cannot have followed the fortunes of Ruth Stuart and her
friends in their adventures without realizing Ruth's high and fine regard
for her word. Yet here were Ruth and her friends about to be taken to
jail for breaking the laws of the little Virginia city.

It was small wonder that Ruth found it difficult to speak.

"I will go with the policeman," she assented. "Perhaps he will let you
take Mollie and Grace on home."

Of course no one paid the slightest attention to Ruth's ridiculous
suggestion. Her friends were not very likely to leave her alone to argue
h