Part 36 (1/2)
Poor, afflicted little Wren!
Straight to the private sanitarium they went--these two motor girls.
Miss Brown helped carry the table up to Wren's bedside.
At the sight of it Wren uttered a scream--then the shock did what medical skill often fails to do. Wren Salvey sprang out of bed, touched a spring in the table and a drawer jerked open.
”There!” she shrieked, holding up a paper. ”The will!” Then she fell back--exhausted.
”The shock has done it,” said Miss Brown as Clip helped put the girl on the bed and Cora looked frightened. ”It has broken the knot that tied her muscles. She will be cured.”
Clip stepped over to a closet, and while Cora was almost fainting from excitement Clip quietly took off her motor coat. Presently she stepped back to Cora--in the full garb of a trained nurse.
”Clip!” exclaimed Cora.
”Yes,” replied the girl, ”I graduate to-night. Will you be able to come?”
What more should be told? With the failure of Rob Roland to get possession of the table he lost all courage and simply admitted defeat.
It was Sid Wilc.o.x who stole the book from little Wren--just to avenge Ida Giles, whose lunch basket had been demolished by a motor girl. An odd revenge, but he thought, in some way, it would annoy the motor girls. Of course Rob Roland paid him something for doing it. But all their strategy was not equal to the ready wit of Cora Kimball and her chums. Nor was this the only time that the motor girls proved their worth in times of danger and necessity. They were active partic.i.p.ants in other adventures, as will be related in the third volume of this series, to be called ”The Motor Girls at Lookout Beach; Or, In Quest of the Runaways.” How they went East in their cars, and how they unexpectedly got on, the trail of two girls who had left home under a cloud, will, I think, make a tale you will wish to peruse.
It was not long after the table and the promise book had been restored to Wren, and following her complete recovery, that the suit against Mr.
Robinson was dropped. Roland, Reed & Company admitted that they had arranged to have the papers taken from the mailbag, and the government imposed a heavy fine on them for their daring crime. They had done what they did with the idea of securing information, and not with a desire to keep the papers, but the Federal authorities would accept no excuses. Later Mr. Robinson secured heavy damages from the men, the disfigured thumb of one having served Clip to identify him.
As for Wren and Mrs. Salvey, with the will in their possession, they were enabled to get control of a comfortable income, and Wren could be taken to a health resort to fully recover her strength. Sid Wilc.o.x and Rob Roland were not prosecuted for their mean parts in the transactions, as it was desired to have as little publicity as possible.
”And to think, Clip, dear, that you were deceiving us all the while,”
remarked Cora several days later, when she and the Robinson twins; and a few other of the chums, were gathered in the Kimball home. ”I never would have thought it of you.”