Then began some fun that was novel and exciting even to the Outdoor Girls, who thought they had tried just about every sport there was.

Mollie bent her straight little back over the steering wheel, gave her more power and the big car fairly flew ahead, lessening perceptibly the distance between it and the racer.

However, Betty, looking behind, seemed not in the least concerned.  On the contrary, she waved her hand joyously as she recognized Mollie had taken her challenge.  Then she too bent over the wheel with her eyes glued to the flying ribbon of road ahead.

“Betty, Betty, stop it!” cried Grace, holding frantically to her hat and the side of the car.  “Suppose we should m-meet somebody ­a wagon or a m-machine.”

“So much the worse for it,” retorted Betty gayly.  “You keep your eye on Mollie, Gracie dear, and tell me whether she’s gaining ­that’s a good girl.”

“If you think I’m going to help you break our necks ­” Grace sputtered, but Betty cut her short.

“Well, if you don’t I will have to look for myself,” she said, adding maliciously:  “And then we will have a smash-up!”

Grace groaned and looked behind her.

“They’re gaining,” she cried, and then all at once the spirit of the thing caught her ­the contest of speed was getting into her blood.  “Oh, Betty, don’t let ’em,” she almost screamed, above the noise of the motor and the rushing wind.  “They’re not more than fifty feet behind now!”

Betty gave her a swift look, smiled to herself, and once more fixed her dancing eyes on the road ahead.

“All right,” she crowed.  “Just watch me run away from them.  I wouldn’t have had the heart,” she added with a chuckle, “if Mollie hadn’t brought it all on herself.”

“But they’re still gaining,” insisted Grace nervously, trying to look behind, ahead, keep her seat, hat, and dignity all at the same time.  “Look, Betty, they’re only about thirty feet behind!”

“That’s near enough,” Betty decided, and leaning over suddenly, did something to the car that Grace never quite understood.  Anyway, it had the desired effect.  The little racer fairly leapt forward and, like a horse that has been given his head for the first time, took the bit between its teeth and bolted.

Behind them Mollie looked her amazement.  She was getting every bit of speed out of her machine of which it was capable, and then, just as victory was within sight, Betty was doing an inconceivable, unbelievable thing ­she was winning the race!

Mrs. Ford and Amy had been enjoying the race tremendously, but now they leaned forward in surprise.

“Goodness, she’s beating us,” cried Amy.

“No!” snapped Mollie sarcastically.  “Who would have supposed it?”

“Perhaps it is because Betty’s car is so much lighter,” suggested Mrs. Ford consolingly.  “We have all the luggage and wraps, too.”

“Oh, that wouldn’t make so much difference,” denied Mollie, who was too good a sportsman to make excuses for herself.  “Betty’s racer has the speed, that’s all.”

“Well, they’re just about out of sight now,” said Amy, leaning back resignedly.  “I only hope Betty doesn’t run into anything and have a smash-up.  She hasn’t driven a car as much as you, Mollie.”

“Oh, Betty’ll take care of herself,” said Mollie, though she was slightly mollified by this tribute to her superior experience, if not superior speed.  “I guess,” she added, after a moment’s reflection, “I’d better sell this old car and get a racer too.”

Mrs. Ford laughed softly, the first time she had laughed or thought of laughing since receiving the news of Will’s being wounded.

“Don’t go back on an old friend for its first offence, Mollie,” she chided, adding diplomatically:  “A racing car is just fine for speed, but I think your automobile is much more sociable and comfy.”

“Well, I’m glad there’s something nice about it,” said Mollie, for she had not yet recovered from her surprise and chagrin.  “I hope,” she added, as a sudden thought struck her, “that Betty doesn’t get too far ahead.  I don’t know this part of the country very well and Betty has the map.”

“That will be the next thing,” said Amy, with a sigh, and Mollie looked at her sharply.

“What?” she demanded.

“Why, that we’ll get lost,” Amy explained.  “Wasn’t that what you meant?”

“Oh, I hope not,” said Mrs. Ford, a little anxiously.  “Perhaps we’ll be able to see them when we round this curve, Mollie.”

But they rounded several curves, and still no sign of Betty’s car.  Then happened what Mollie had secretly been fearing would happen.  They came to a crossroads and a sudden stop at one and the same moment.

“Now, what?” queried Amy, in the tone of resignation that never failed to rub Mollie the wrong way.  “Something the matter with the engine?”

“No, the engine’s all right,” snapped Mollie, adding, irritably:  “But everything else is all wrong.”

“What, for instance?” queried Mrs. Ford soothingly.  She knew that the first defeat Mollie had ever experienced would be bound to rankle and was prepared to make allowances.  “If the engine is all right, why don’t we go on?”

“Which way?” queried Mollie, spreading out her arms with a hopeless gesture.  “There are two roads, one looks as good as the other, and we haven’t the slightest idea in the world which to take.”

“Oh!” gasped Amy.

Mrs. Ford gave a low whistle as she saw the fix they were in.

“Then if Betty doesn’t realize our predicament and come back pretty soon, we’ll either have to stay here indefinitely, or go back the way we came, is that it?”

“Yes,” nodded Mollie, adding truthfully and more than a little anxiously:  “Only I’m not quite sure I know just how we came.  As I said, this is unfamiliar country to me.”

Amy groaned.

“Then we shall be lost for fair,” she said.  “Oh, why did Betty do such a foolish thing?”

Mollie was about to retort when a cloud of dust in the distance and a faint chug-chug made her swallow her words.

“What’s that?” she cried.  “It sounds like a motor.  I wonder ­”

“Yes, it is!” cried Amy, straining her eyes to see through the cloud of dust.  “It’s only a little car, and it’s coming at about ninety miles an hour.”

At this reference to Betty’s speed, Mollie winced a little but gave a relieved sigh nevertheless.  For by this time the car was near enough to be identified beyond doubt.  It was a racer, and there was a girl at the wheel.

A few moments later Betty herself, with a grin, hailed them.

“Hello,” she cried, adding as the car slowed to a standstill:  “This time the joke’s on us.  We were so busy running away from you that we took the wrong road.  This one ends about two miles up in somebody’s farm.”

“It’s lucky something stopped you,” said Mollie dryly, adding as she cocked one eye at the sun:  “Well, let’s be getting along.  We’ll have to hurry and make up for lost time.”

“Do you still want to get ahead of us?” asked Betty, as a moment later she swung her car into the right road.  “Because if you do ­”

“Go on,” cried Mollie, exasperated, yet beginning to laugh, for after all Mollie was a good loser.  “Some way or other I’ll get even with you, Betty Nelson.  Meanwhile hustle!”

And Betty hustled, with Mollie keeping just far enough behind to avoid the cloud of dust the little car threw up.  For an hour more the motors purred rhythmically, eating up mile after mile, until finally the girls were compelled by ravenous and healthy appetites to stop for lunch.

They had brought two big hampers, packed full with sandwiches, fruit and cake and also something to drink, and after the long ride in the open the very thought of these delicacies brought, as Grace said, “the tears of longing to their eyes.”

As Mrs. Ford handed one of the baskets over the seat to Mollie in front, Betty and Grace tumbled out of their car and came running toward them.

“Are you going to get out and eat, in romantic fashion, by the wayside?” queried Grace, eyeing a pile of sandwiches hungrily.  “Or are you going to sit in state in the car and let us occupy the running board?”

“We’ll give you one of the hampers,” offered Mrs. Ford, but Mollie gasped in dismay.

“Oh, please don’t,” she begged.  “Don’t you see ­there are only two of them to our three.  And you want to give them half the lunch!”

They laughed at her, and Betty offered a solution.

“Far be it from us to rob you, Honey,” she said soothingly.  “We’ll sit right here on this rock ­”

“Oh, goodness! who cares where we sit as long as we get something,” groaned Grace.  “Mollie, I’m dying.”

“Well as long as you die out there it’s all right,” retorted Mollie unfeelingly.  Nevertheless, she handed the sufferer a ham sandwich and a hard boiled egg, which the latter came as near to grabbing as her good breeding would permit.

However, when they had finished the lunch, burned up what odds and ends remained, and had once more started on their way, they found that the shadow of unhappiness which the excitement of the race had almost banished, was returning again.

In front with Betty, Grace sighed so dolefully that the Little Captain looked at her inquiringly, an action which almost brought about a collision with a tree by the wayside.

“Betty, what are you doing?”

“Trying to kill us,” replied Betty serenely.  “And if you give any more sighs like that, I’ll do it.”

“I didn’t know I sighed,” said Grace gloomily.  “But it wouldn’t be any wonder if I did.  I feel as if I were made up of them ­sighs, I mean.”

Betty was silent a moment, then she asked suddenly: 

“When does your father expect to hear from Washington?”

“Not before the end of the week, anyway.  And by that time,” Grace paused to control the trembling of her lips, “nobody knows what may have happened.  For all we know Will may be ­dead.”