Part 3 (1/2)

But Margery looked more frightened than ever. ”I can't go to Ft.

Wayne,” she said. ”My uncle would expect me to go there and would have the station watched. That's why I wanted to go to Decatur. They would never think of looking there for me. What shall I do. I know I'll never get to mother!”

She looked so young and babyish and helpless that Nyoda made up her mind on the spot that she was not the kind of girl who could be left on her own resources.

”Tell me,” she said, ”does your mother expect you to-morrow?”

Margery shook her head. ”She doesn't even know that I'm coming.”

”Then,” said Nyoda decidedly, ”I'm not going to leave you to find your way there alone. We will be going through Louisville in a few days and you're going to stay right with us until we get there. Your uncle will probably be having trains watched and would never think of you in an automobile. It is the best solution of the problem. We'll get you a dress and veil like the other girls and everyone will think you are one of our party. In that case you don't need to be afraid to go to Ft.

Wayne, where we must stop, as we will not go near a railway station.”

Margery agreed to this plan with such an air of relief that it was plain to be seen what an ordeal it had been for her to try to travel alone.

With this delay of having to go to Decatur it was past noon before we got to Ft. Wayne. Once there we were at a loss how to proceed to find the Striped Beetle and the girls. I believe everyone of us confidently expected to find them waiting for us at some point where the road entered the city, and it threw us off our bearings to find they were not there. Even Nyoda was plainly puzzled what to do. We found the little Potter Hotel where we were to have stayed and asked to see the register. It was possible that the girls had been there after all in spite of the telegram not having been delivered. Telegrams have failed to connect before. But they had not been there. If they had stayed with friends we did not know where they were now. It was a riddle. Not getting any light on the subject we decided to eat our dinner before we looked farther.

We checked our cameras and the man at the checking counter looked at us closely when we came up. There was no one else there and he seemed inclined to be talkative.

”There was a party just like you here yesterday,” he said.

”What do you mean by 'just like us?'” we asked.

”Same clothes,” he answered. ”Four girls in tan suits and green veils and one in a blue suit and white veil.”

We all looked at each other. The four girls were evidently ours, but who was the one in blue?

”What time were they here?” we asked.

”About five o'clock yesterday afternoon,” he answered. ”They checked some things here and then went into the dining-room.”

Five o'clock was the time we should all have reached Ft. Wayne if things had gone right.

”Have you any idea where they have gone now?” we asked, eagerly.

”They were on their way to Chicago, going through Ligonier,” answered the man. ”I heard them talking about it. They seemed to be in a great hurry and were only in the dining-room about fifteen minutes. The one in blue kept telling them to make haste.”

”The plot thickens,” said Sahwah. ”Gladys is mixed up in some adventure of her own, apparently. She's not running away from us for the fun of the thing, you can rest a.s.sured. I never thought so from the first.

She's probably taking some distressed damsel to Chicago in a grand rush and counts on us to trust her until we catch up with her and hear the explanation.”

”Yes,” agreed Nyoda, ”she must have had some urgent reason for acting so, that's a foregone conclusion.”

”It's a _four gone_ one all right,” said Sahwah, but Nyoda's mind was too busy with wondering about Gladys to notice the pun.

”I think the best thing to do is to follow them as fast as we can,”

said Sahwah.

”I think so too,” said Nyoda.

Puzzled as we were about Gladys's strange behavior, we were yet relieved of all anxiety about the Striped Beetle and its pa.s.sengers.