Part 5 (1/2)

”I hid in it,” said Margery. ”In the garage. And he,” she pointed to the man, ”drove away and I was afraid to come out.”

”What made you hide in the car?” asked Nyoda.

Margery gave a quick glance around. ”I saw my uncle,” she said in a half whisper. ”He was looking at the fire. He didn't see me. I ran away and hid in the garage and when people began coming for their cars I was afraid they would find me and I got into this one. Pretty soon my uncle came into the garage. I was down on the floor of the limousine and he didn't see me. Just then the driver got up in front and began to take the car out, but I didn't dare open the door and come out. He drove away with me and I didn't know what to do, so I stayed in. Then the car stopped on the road and I was going to get out and run away when the other car came up behind and ran into us. I was afraid it was my uncle and didn't even come out when the car nearly fell over. But I was frightened and cried and you heard me and opened the door.”

”Tell me,” said Nyoda, ”was your uncle the man with the goggles?”

”No,” answered Margery, ”he wasn't. My uncle is a little, thin man with gray hair.”

”It's a mercy you weren't hurt,” said Nyoda, thinking with a shudder of the blow we had dealt the limousine. ”You did get cut,” she cried, turning the flashlight full on her face. The blood was running down her cheek from a cut in her forehead and her arm was also bleeding. We tied her up with strips of handkerchiefs and set her on the back seat of the Glow-worm.

The owner of the limousine decided to leave it there and come for it in the morning, and, as our engine was not hurt we thought best to drive on. The man offered to pay for having our wheel fixed and the fender put on again and seemed dreadfully afraid we were going to sue him. He gave us his name and address and told us to send the bill to him. He lived in the neighborhood and could find his way home on foot.

After he had disappeared in the fog and the Glow-worm was once more proceeding on her journey, we suddenly realized that we did not know where we were nor in which direction we were going. We were not on the road to Chicago, we knew, because the road we had followed out of Wellsville in pursuit of the Frog had gone off at right angles to that road. At the time we had thought only of finding out what had become of Margery and had followed him blindly. The fog was getting thicker instead of thinner and it was impossible to see anything like a sign post. A sharp east wind was blowing that chilled us to the bone. It was rather a dismal situation we found ourselves in. Of all kinds of bad weather I hate fog the worst. It makes me feel as if I had lost my last friend. Nyoda hadn't any idea where she was going, but she kept the car moving slowly, hoping that we would come to a town pretty soon. We sounded the horn constantly to warn any other vehicles on the road and Nakwisi offered to sit in front and keep a lookout with her telescope.

”Telescope!” said Sahwah, scornfully. ”What you want is a collide-o- scope!” Whereupon we all pinched her for making a pun and went on s.h.i.+vering.

Just when we got off the road I don't know, but gradually we became aware that it was not hard earth we were riding over but something that swished under the wheels like long gra.s.s.

”We're in a field!” cried Sahwah.

Nyoda turned the car around and we went a few yards, expecting to get back into the road every minute. Then suddenly the car began to go down hill very rapidly, and at the bottom there was a grand splash, and we found ourselves up to the wheel hubs in water. We had run into a stream of some kind. The bottom was soft mud and to keep from sinking we had to go on across. Luckily it was shallow and not very wide and the water did not come inside the car. Margery screamed all the way across and we had a rather breathless few minutes, until we came out on the farther bank. Once on dry land again Nyoda stopped the car and flatly refused to drive another inch. We were off the road, we had no idea where we were, and there was too much danger of running into things in the fog.

None of us dared to think what might have happened if that river had been deep.

So here we were stranded, at about two o'clock in the morning, in a field n.o.body knew where, by a road whose direction we could not even guess, with a thick mantle of fog rolling around us as dense as the smoke had been a few hours before. Could it have been only a few hours before that we came near burning to death? And now we were in nearly as much danger of freezing to death. Fire and dampness all in one night!

It certainly was a varied experience.

And the cold was no joke. It pierced the very marrow of our bones. We were not dressed for any such weather as that. We had had two blankets in the car but there was only one left when we recovered it from the Frog. Sahwah suggested that we join hands around the Glow-worm and sing ”When the mists have rolled away”.

”You'll have to get out and walk around, if you don't want to catch cold,” said Nyoda. We walked up and down for a while, each with a hand on the other's shoulder so as not to get separated and lost in the fog.

This walk soon turned into a snake dance and then a war dance around the Glow-worm. It must have been a weird sight if anyone had seen us, ghostly figures flitting about in the illumined fog around the car. I suppose they would have taken us for dancing nymphs or will-o'-the- wisps, or some other creatures which inhabit the swamps.

We really became hilarious as we danced, although it was a serious business of keeping warm, and on the whole I would not have missed that night for anything. I adore unusual experiences and I'm sure not many people have been stalled in a fog when on an automobile trip and have had to spend the night dancing to keep warm. Margery didn't see the funny side of it, and you really couldn't blame her, poor thing, for it was all her fault that we were in this mess and she had been so badly frightened earlier in the night and then so shaken up when the Glow- worm ran into the limousine.

She didn't want to dance to keep warm and sat s.h.i.+vering in the car with the one blanket around her, except when Nyoda made her get out and exercise.

Morning came at last and when the sun rose the fog lifted. We found ourselves in the middle of a field some distance from the road, near the stream into which we had plunged the night before. We must have been off the road for some time before we noticed it. The place where we had run off was where the road turned and we had kept on straight ahead instead of turning. We got out of the field and followed the road. It was not a regular automobile road and was not sign-posted. We did not know whether we had gone north or south from Wellsville the night before. The fog had us completely turned around. By the position of the sun, the road extended toward the south. How far we had come we could not tell. We thought of going back to Wellsville and striking the main road again, but then Nyoda decided that by finding a road which ran toward the west we could strike the other trunk line route that went up to South Bend by way of Rochester and Plymouth. We did not want to make Wellsville again if we could possibly help it, for fear we would run into Margery's uncle.

That ride to Rochester was more like a bad dream than anything else. As I have said, we were not on the main automobile road, and we soon got into such ruts and mud holes as I have never seen. In places the road was strewn with stones and we were nearly shaken to pieces going over them. It was not long before we came to a sound asleep little townlet, but we didn't have the heart to wake it up and ask it its name, so we went on to the next. It was then about six in the morning and a few people were stirring in the main street. We found by inquiry that we were in the town of Byron and that by turning to the west beyond the schoolhouse we would strike a road which eventually led to Rochester.

”Eventually” was the right word. It certainly was not ”directly”. It twisted and turned and ended up in fields; it wound back and forth upon itself like a serpent; it dissolved in places into a lake of mud. We didn't go very fast because we were afraid the wobbly wheel would wobble off. Hungry as we were we decided to wait until we reached Rochester before getting breakfast, so we could put the car into the repair shop the first thing and save time. We staved off the keenest pangs of hunger by plundering an apple tree that dangled its ripe fruit invitingly over the road, and I haven't tasted anything so delicious before or since as those Wohelo apples, as we named them.

The poor Glow-worm minus the one fender looked like a glow-worm with one wing off and the wobbling wheel gave it a tipsy appearance. Nyoda frowned as she drove; I know she hated the spectacle we made.

”Needles and pins, needles and pins, When a girl drives an auto her trouble begins,”

spouted Sahwah.

”Aren't we nearly there?” sighed Nakwisi, as she came back to the seat after rising to the occasion of a b.u.mp.