The Motor Girls at Camp Surprise; Or, The Cave in the Mountains Read online

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  THE MOTOR GIRLS AT CAMP SURPRISE

  Or

  The Cave in the Mountains

  BY

  Margaret Penrose

  The GOLDSMITH Publishing Co.

  CLEVELAND OHIO MADE IN THE U.S.A.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER PAGE I. An Unpleasant Awakening 1 II. The Lost Trail 10 III. Two Strange Men 18 IV. A Curious Story 26 V. Counterfeit Tickets 34 VI. Off to Camp 42 VII. Jack's Bath 50 VIII. The Storm 58 IX. Tied Up 67 X. A Night Ride 74 XI. In Camp Surprise 83 XII. Disappointment 90 XIII. That Noise 98 XIV. Was It Thunder? 108 XV. A Narrow Escape 115 XVI. Lost 122 XVII. Two Men 131 XVIII. Real Surprises 138 XIX. Where's My Light? 147 XX. More Happenings 158 XXI. A Dancing Light 163 XXII. A Mountain Cave 170 XXIII. The Trembling Noise 178 XXIV. The Secret Passage 184 XXV. The Patched Tire 191 XXVI. The Dropped Bundle 200 XXVII. The Girls' Discovery 207 XXVIII. Prisoners 214 XXIX. To the Rescue 222 XXX. All's Well 235

  THE MOTOR GIRLS AT CAMP SURPRISE

  CHAPTER I--AN UNPLEASANT AWAKENING

  "Look where you are steering, Cora Kimball! You nearly ran over achicken that time."

  "Yes, and avoiding the chicken on that side, you nearly hit a child onthis side. Such a dear little boy--or was it a girl? I never can tellwhen they're so young."

  "Two misses are as good as two miles," misquoted the bronzed girl at thewheel of the automobile, as she straightened the car on the long, shadedroad, where the trees met in a green archway overhead, and where thegolden shadows flitted in the dust like so many little chickens runningto cover, away from the fat-tired wheels.

  "Why are you in such a hurry, Cora?" asked Bess Robinson, as she tuckedback a straying lock of brown hair. "It's too perfect a day to doanything in a hurry--even run a car."

  "Bess doesn't believe in doing _anything_ in a hurry," lazily droned hersister Belle, from the rear seat. "That's why she's so fat."

  "Don't dare use that objectionable word!" stormed Bess, turning about sosuddenly that she sent Cora's elbow against the plunger of the horn,thereby producing a sudden blast.

  "Oh!" exclaimed Bess. "Did we run into something again?"

  "Again?" demanded Cora. "Come, I like that--not! We haven't run into_anything_ yet."

  "That chicken," murmured Belle, even more lazily. "Yes?"

  "Was a good fifty feet out of danger!" declared Cora indignantly.

  "And what of the child?"

  "That never _was_ in danger. I didn't see him--her or it--until we hadpassed. But the child--gender unknown--was playing in the dust beside theroad. Queer how mothers can let them."

  "Probably the mother didn't know a thing about it," said Bess, who haddiscovered that she was the sole cause of the needless alarm in regardto the horn's blast. "One can't be always on the lookout."

  "Don't start a discussion," begged Cora, as a backward glance showedsome signs of Belle's stirring up sufficiently to refute her sister'sremarks. "It's too hot."

  "It is when you slow down," observed Bess. "But the breeze is perfectlyfascinating when you keep the car moving, Cora."

  "Well, I don't intend to slow down right away. Have you girls anyparticular desire to go to any particular place?"

  "Spare us all nerve-racking _particulars_ on a day like this," entreatedBelle, sliding down into a more comfortable position in the big,cushioned seat she occupied all alone. "It is so warm! Summer is comingwith a vengeance."

  "And it makes me wish we had set the date of our departure for CampSurprise a week or so earlier," remarked Cora. "I wonder if we couldarrange to go any sooner."

  "I could," declared Bess. "I haven't a thing to do."

  "Except reduce," put in her sister tantalizingly.

  "Belle Robinson! If you don't stop those mean, insinuating remarks,I'll--I'll----"

  "You won't give me any more of those chocolates you sneaked into yourbag as we were coming out," finished Belle. "I saw you, and you knowwhat Dr. Blake told you would happen if you didn't stop eating sweets.You'll get so----"

  "These aren't sweet!" interrupted Bess. "They're the bitter kind, andthey're delicious, too. They have them so fresh at Gordon's."

  "It's a wonder she wouldn't give us a chance to decide for ourselves,instead of introducing expert testimony on her own account," laughedCora. "Come, Bess, out with them!"

  "Certainly," agreed the plump girl, with easy grace. "I intended toshare them all along, but it was so warm----"

  "Don't say warm again!" drawled her sister. "Your nose is as shiny nowas a tin teakettle."

  "Belle Robinson! It is not!"

  Instantly Bess had her little mirror and vanity box in use, and a quickdab on her rather up-turned nose did away with the condition complainedof, or at least alleged, by her sister.

  "There, does that satisfy you?" she asked, turning about for inspection,as Cora swung the big car around a turn in the road.

  "Oh, I'm easily satisfied," Belle murmured. "What a perfectly gorgeousview!" she cried, as she looked down from a height toward a village thatlay nestled in a green valley, girt around by a winding, silvery river,glimpses of which could be had now and then between the trees that linedthe shores.

  "Yes, it is a good view," agreed Cora, stopping the car. "CheerfulChelton looks even more amiable and love-like than usual to-day. It'scooler up here, too. Now pass over those chocolates, Bess."

  "And watch her get more and more--well, I'll say plump--before your eyes,like that fat boy Scott tells about," laughed Belle.

  "It wasn't Scott's fat boy. He was in Dickens," corrected Cora."Nicholas Nickleby, I think."

  "Pickwick Papers!" voiced Bess. "There! I know something even if Iam--plump. But, girls, I have lost five pounds in the last month."

  "Not so's you'd notice it," murmured Belle.

  "Cease! Cease and have done!" admonished Cora. "How does that new onego--two slow and one quick to the side and then----"

  "Not slow at all!" interrupted Bess. "You've got to follow through oryou'll slice the ball and----"

  "What in the world are you talking about?" demanded Cora, her eyesopening wide. "Slice the ball? What's that in? The fox trot?"

  "I was speaking of golf," murmured Bess.

  "She's taken it
up to--reduce," whispered Belle.

  "I thought you meant that new three-step we tried the other night," camefrom Cora.

  "It's too warm even to talk about dancing," declared Belle. "Really wemust think of getting away sooner. Do you think we could get thatbungalow at Camp Surprise earlier than we had planned to take it, Cora?"

  "I don't know. Mother made all the arrangements. But I can find out. Doyou really think you'd like to go sooner?"

  "I certainly do," murmured plump Bess, who seemed to feel the suddensummer heat more than did Cora, or the more svelt Belle. "Oh, by theway, Cora! why do they call it Camp Surprise?"

  "I meant to ask that, too," added Belle. "It's such an odd name."

  "And there's an odd story connected with it," said Cora. "I'll have toask mother about it. She merely mentioned it, and something else came upso I forgot to get the particulars. I'll find out when we go back. Butif you girls are really in earnest about starting our summer vacation alittle earlier this year----"

  "I most certainly am in earnest," Bess said.

  "And I," added her sister.

  "Then I'll see what we can do," went on the girl at the wheel. "Oh dear!I wish I hadn't eaten those chocolates!" she exclaimed, making a wryface. "I ought to have known better. Candy always makes me thirsty, andI didn't bring the vacuum bottle."

  Belle sat up, carefully removed, with the tip of her tongue, some brownchocolate stains from the tips of her pink, well-manicured fingers and,looking up and down the road, announced:

  "That dear little tea room--Ye Olde Spinning Wheel--is only about a milefarther on. Suppose we go there? I'm dying for a cup of tea with lemonin it."

  "Oh, so am I!" added Bess. "They say lemon is thinning."

  "Then you'd better have lemonade with a leaf or two of tea in it," saidBelle.

  "You--you----" spluttered Bess, drawing back her hand in which nestled achocolate. And then her desire to throw it was overcome by her appetitefor the confection.

  "Ye Olde Spinning Wheel," repeated Cora. "That sounds most enticing.We'll go there, if only to keep you two from bickering. What's gotten inyou sisters to-day, I never saw you so on each other's nerves."

  "It's the weather," returned Belle.

  "Let us hope so. Well, if you've admired the view enough we'll go on."

  They had come to a pause at the crest of a shaded hill, and down belowthem lay the village in which the three girls lived. Cheerful Chelton ithad been designated, and cheerful it was.

  Cora, who had not stopped the engine, slipped the clutch in aftershifting the gear and the car moved down the slope, gradually cuttingoff the view of the town.

  "What about the boys?" asked Bess, apropos of nothing in particular.

  "What boys?" demanded Cora.

  "Ours, of course," and Bess looked surprised that any others should havebeen thought of. "I mean your brother Jack, Walter Pennington and PaulHastings. Didn't you say Paul was thinking of going to camp with ourboys, if they took the little bungalow near ours at Camp Surprise?"

  "Yes, Paul is coming," Cora said.

  "Well, can the boys get away earlier if we do? It won't be any fun goingthere alone, particularly if there's a mystery about the place."

  "I didn't say there was any mystery about the place," corrected Cora."Though there may be. Besides, we're to have a chaperon, you know. Or atleast the caretaker and his wife live in Camp Surprise, and I presumeshe will be a chaperon."

  "But it won't be half the fun if the boys don't come along," declaredBelle. "They are so jolly, and--er--well, you know what I mean," shefinished a bit lamely.

  "No need to explain at all," said Cora cheerfully. "It's perfectly allright. If I go, that means mother can close the house so much earlier.Jack won't stay there alone, I know, so he's likely to tag along."

  "And if Jack goes Walter will. I guess we can count of making an earlierstart on our vacation than we contemplated," said Bess. "It will belovely."

  "Yes," Cora assented.

  "There's the tea room," added Belle a little later as the car came outon a long, level stretch of road. "It's a perfect dear of a place; isn'tit?"

  "A regular gazelle," agreed Cora mockingly.

  She swung her machine into the parking place provided, and a few minutesafterward the three girls were sitting at one of the wicker tables, inwicker chairs, near a window which opened on a vine-shaded porch, whileelectric fans hummed and droned breezily and refreshingly behind themand in front of them stood rose-tinted plates heaped high with paleyellow cream, nestled alongside of which were delicately brownedmacaroons.

  "Oh, what a symphony of color!" murmured Cora, as the white-capped,colored waitress set the refreshments from off her mahogany-cretonnetray.

  "If it tastes half as good as it looks," murmured Bess, "I'm going tohave another plate, if I have to roll twice my usual number of timesbefore I go to bed to-night."

  "It is good," said Belle. "It's delicious!"

  "I could just sit here and--dream," announced Belle, as she closed her"effective" eyes, as Jack Kimball had designated them.

  "Yes, it is very soothing and restful," agreed her sister, who had beenrendered sleepy by the combination of heat, a refreshing meal and thedroning of the electric fans.

  "I feel sleepy myself," Cora confessed, closing her eyes.

  She opened them a moment later though, for a cry from Belle brought herand Bess to a most unpleasant awakening.

  "Your car, Cora!" cried the slim Robinson twin. "Some one is taking yourauto!"