Part 16 (1/2)

”Don't you dare say so!” cried Belle. ”Please look around my room, and leave the light burning. I know I'll never sleep a wink.”

Jack tossed out the centipede he had killed, and then looked among the waste paper for more, standing with his bare foot raised, and with ready slipper, for the bite of this insect, which grows to a large size in Porto Rico, is anything but pleasant, though it is said never to cause death, except perhaps in the case of some person whose blood is very much impoverished.

Both Bess and Belle insisted on their lights being left aglow, though Jack made a careful search and could discover no more of the unpleasant visitors. How Belle had heard the one in her room, if it really had been that which she said made the noise, was a mystery, but the creature might have rattled paper as it did in the room of Bess.

”Call me if you want anything more, Sis,” said Jack to his sister, as he started back to his own apartment. And then, as he was about to close, Cora's door Jack looked fixedly at a place on the floor near her bureau, and with a muttered exclamation hurried toward it.

”Oh! what is it?” his sister begged, alarmed at the look on his face.

”Another one--trying to hide,” he murmured.

Off came his slipper again and there followed a resounding whack on the floor.

”Got that one, too!” Jack announced, and then, as Coral made brave by the declaration of the death, came closer, she uttered a cry.

”Jack Kimball!” she gasped, accusingly, ”you've broken my best barrette,” and she picked up from the floor the shattered fragments of a dark celluloid hair comb, which had fallen from the bureau.

”Barrette,” murmured Jack, in dazed tones.

”Yes--a sort of side comb, only it goes in the back.”

”Well, it looked just like a centipede trying to hide under the bureau,” Jack defended himself. ”Is it much damaged?”

”Damaged? It's utterly ruined,” sighed Cora. ”Never mind, Jack, you meant all right,” and she smiled at her brother.

”Oh, dear! I don't believe I'm going to like it here, even if the waters are such a heavenly blue.”

”What was it--another?” demanded Belle.

”It was my barrette, my dear,” laughed Cora.

”Come, young folks! You must quiet down,” came the voice of Cora's mother from the next room. ”What's all the excitement about?”

”Just--insects,” said Jack, with a chuckle. ”We are hunting the deadly barretted side comb!”

”You'll have to get me another,” said Cora, as she bade Jack good-night.

There was no further disturbance, and the hotel clerk said, next morning, that the presence of one or two scorpions, or centipedes, could be accounted for from the fact that the rooms occupied by our friends had not recently been used. He promised to see to it that all undesirable visitors were hunted out during the day.

For a week or more, life in San Juan was an experience of delight for the motor girls. They visited points of interest in and about the city, taking Inez with them. Of course Jack and Walter also went, and the change was doing the former a world of good.

The mysterious ”fat man,” as Jack insisted on calling Senor Ramo, had not come ash.o.r.e at San Juan, going on with the steamer. His destination was another of the many West Indian islands.

As yet, Mr. Robinson had had no chance to communicate with, or make arrangements for rescuing the father of Inez. But he was making careful plans to do this, and now, being on the ground, he could confirm some information difficult to get at in New York.

The motor girls, and their party, soon accustomed themselves to the changed conditions. They learned to eat as the Porto Ricans do--little meat making eggs take the place, and they never knew before what a variety of ways eggs could e served.

The weather was growing more pleasant each day, and with the gradual pa.s.sing of the hurricane season, they were allowed to take longer trips in one of the many motor boats with which the harbor abounded.