



Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
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[Illustration: Sometimes they were on the edge of such dizzy heights
that Miss Campbell held her breath.]




                            THE MOTOR MAIDS
                               ACROSS THE
                               CONTINENT

                                   BY

                            KATHERINE STOKES

       AUTHOR OF "THE MOTOR MAIDS' SCHOOL DAYS," "THE MOTOR MAIDS
                        BY PALM AND PINE," ETC.

                                NEW YORK
                            HURST & COMPANY
                               PUBLISHERS




                            Copyright, 1911,
                                   BY
                            HURST & COMPANY




                                CONTENTS

             CHAPTER                                      PAGE
                  I. Westward Ho!                            5
                 II. Peter                                  22
                III. In Search of a Dinner                  33
                 IV. The Three Wishes                       48
                  V. An Incident of the Road                67
                 VI. Under the Stars                        81
                VII. Barney M'Gee                           92
               VIII. Cutting the Bonds                     106
                 IX. The Girl from the Golden West         117
                  X. Steptoe Lodge                         130
                 XI. The Hawkes Family                     146
                XII. Into the Wilderness                   156
               XIII. Hot Air Sue                           168
                XIV. On the Road Again                     177
                 XV. In the Robbers' Nest                  190
                XVI. In the Rockies                        206
               XVII. Salt Lake City                        218
              XVIII. David and Goliath                     229
                XIX. A Day of Surprises                    242
                 XX. The Elopement                         258
                XXI. A Meeting in the Desert               270
               XXII. A Bit of Old Italy                    280
              XXIII. A Change of Heart                     292
               XXIV. San Francisco at Last                 301




THE MOTOR MAIDS ACROSS THE CONTINENT




CHAPTER I.--WESTWARD HO!


"At my age, too," began Miss Helen Campbell, leaning back in her seat
and folding her hands with an expression of resignation.

"At your age, what, dear cousin?" demanded Wilhelmina Campbell,
superintending the strapping on at the back of the car of five extra
large suit cases and other paraphernalia for a long trip. "Why should
not things happen at your age as well as at ours? But at your age,
what?"

"At my age to turn emigrant," exclaimed the little lady. "At my age to
become a gypsy vagabond. Oh, dear, oh, dear! What would grandpapa have
said?"

"He would have been delighted, I am certain, Cousin Helen," answered her
young relative, "since he was a soldier and a jolly old gentleman, too,
papa has always said."

"But such an up to date gypsy-vagabond-emigrant, Miss Campbell," pursued
Elinor Butler, "one who rides in a motor car and wears a silk traveling
coat and a sky-blue chiffon veil."

"And has four ladies-in-waiting," continued Nancy Brown.

"And hotels all along the route to sleep in instead of tents," finished
Mary Price.

"Very true, my dears. I admit all you say; but now at the last moment,
when we are about to start on this amazing journey, I cannot help
thinking it is a wild adventure. But I shall be over it in a moment, I
daresay. Have the machine cranked-up, Billie. Do I use the correct word?
and let us be off before my courage fails me altogether."

With a happy laugh, Billie jumped into her seat behind the wheel. The
other girls were already in their accustomed places. One of the
attendants from the hotel gave the crank a dexterous twist; there was a
throbbing sound of machinery in action, and off shot the Comet like a
spirited horse, eager to be on the road.

Miss Campbell's spirits rose with the sun, for it was still very early
when the Motor Maids started on their famous journey across the
continent from Chicago to San Francisco. And all the world seemed to be
in league to make the start a happy one. It was a glorious morning
toward the last of May, the air just frosty enough to make the blood
tingle and bring color to the cheeks. Up to the very day before, an icy
gale had blown across the windy city of the plains, but through the
night it had gradually tempered into a springtime breeze. The red car
sped through the sunshine with all the vigor of machinery in perfect
order, and the polished plate glass of the wind guard reflected the four
happy faces of the Motor Maids off on a lark, which, when all is said
and done, and the last page of this volume filled, will have carried
them through many an adventure along the way.

Through Chicago they whirled, past fine homes where sleepy maids and
butlers were just opening windows and blinds to let in the morning
light; through business streets already humming with life, and at last
out through the suburbs on a broad level road, due west, they took their
course.

Billie knew it all like a book because she had been stopping in Chicago
for a week and every day they had taken a spin in the Comet along some
fifty miles of the route. Moreover, for a month past, she had been
studying maps and guide-books until her mind reflected now only a great
bird's-eye view of the United States through the center of which was
drawn a red line; the road the Comet was to take when it bore them to
the Pacific Ocean.

There was nothing now, however, in these flat, monotonous wheat fields
to promote any particular interest. But there was much to talk about.

"Was it only last week that we were four school girls at West Haven High
School slaving over examinations?" cried Elinor Butler.

"Only a little week ago," exclaimed Mary joyfully, "and now, behold us,
free as birds on the wing."

There was a flush of happiness on her usually pale face. It had been a
long, hard spring for her, and she was glad after examinations were
over, to hurry away with her friends without waiting for the final
exercises.

"School! School!" said Nancy Brown, her face dimpling with happiness.
"Don't mention the hateful word. I am as full of mathematics and history
and physics and Latin as a black cake is of plums."

"Plums!" echoed Billie. "I'm stuffed with another variety of fruit. It's
dates."

They laughed at the word dates; for, remembering dates, aside from
mathematics, was the _bete noir_ of Billie's school days and the teacher
of history was very unpopular because she made the pupils of her classes
learn six dates a day.

"But the class is even with Miss Hawkes now," put in Nancy. "She isn't
to come back next year, and we gave her a present besides."

"Why did you give her a present?" asked Miss Campbell, suddenly becoming
curious.

"Well, you see, at the end of school we reckoned we had learned about
800 dates, not that we could remember 100 or even 50. It was Elinor who
thought of it and because she has more nerve than any one else in the
class----"

"Indeed I have not," protested Elinor.

"Because she was never afraid even of the terrifying Miss Hawkes, she
was chosen to make the speech and give Miss Hawkes a present from the
class."

Miss Campbell smiled. She was never tired of listening to their
school-girl talk.

"What did you say and what was the present, my dear?"

"I said," replied Elinor, "that, representing the class, I wanted to
thank her for the splendid mental training she had given us last winter,
and we wished to show our appreciation by giving her a little
remembrance."

"'Remembrance' was a good word, Elinor," cried Billie.

"If she hadn't been so pleased and made that speech of thanks, it
wouldn't have mattered so much," put in Mary. "But I was ashamed when
she untied the ribbons on the box----"

"And what was in it, child?" demanded Miss Campbell.

"Dates," cried Billie, "dozens of dates packed in as tightly as dates
can be packed, just as she had been packing them into our brains for
nine months."

"Oh! oh!" exclaimed Miss Campbell, trying to be shocked and laughing in
spite of herself. "The poor soul! How embarrassed she must have felt.
Was she very angry?"

"We couldn't tell whether she was angry or hurt," answered Elinor. "She
drew herself up stiffer and straighter than usual if possible, and
marched out of the room without a word."

"And left us feeling very foolish indeed, cousin," went on Billie. "But
that isn't all. Because I was the one who never could remember a date
from one day to the next, I suppose she suspected me of having been the
ring-leader and this morning when we stopped at the desk of the hotel
for mail, the clerk handed me this letter. It was forwarded from West
Haven."

Billie drew an envelope from the pocket of her motor coat and gave it to
the others.

"Read it," she said. "I didn't mention it before because I was so much
interested in getting away and I had really forgotten it until the
subject came up. I suppose Miss Hawkes is just a little queer in her
upper story."

The letter read:

  "I understand you are going West in your automobile. If, on your
  journey, you should by chance hear the name of 'Hawkes,' do not
  treat it as lightly as you did in West Haven. Somewhere in the West
  that name is powerful.

                                                        "Anna Hawkes."

"How absurd!" exclaimed Elinor. "She is queer. I am certain of it."

"Anyhow," pursued Billie, "I am ashamed of what we did now. I suppose it
must have hurt her awfully."

"Not more than she hurt us when she scolded us for forgetting those
awful dates," said Nancy relentlessly.

"Oh, well," put in Miss Campbell, "she is just an angry old spinster who
got obsessed with dates and then had a rude awakening. I don't think it
was exactly respectful to have given the lady a box of dried dates. But
she brought it on herself, as you say. Tear up the letter and forget all
about it. I have no doubt she is a perfectly harmless old person."

Miss Campbell always had a secret contempt for other spinsters.

"But she isn't old, you know, cousin. She's just out of college."

"Oh, indeed. I imagined she was a crusty old maid."

"Perhaps she has reference to the powerful family of chicken hawks,"
observed Nancy.

"Or the illustrious fish-hawk family, only they are mostly centered
around New Haven," added Mary.

"How about the tomahawk family?" suggested Billie.

How, indeed? But there was no answer to this strangely pertinent
question because of a timely incident which now occurred.

With the picture still in their minds of a great fish hawk skimming
through the air, as they had often seen him do at home, there now came a
sound of whirring far above them.

Nancy leaned out of the automobile and looked up.

"Oh! oh!" she exclaimed in great excitement "Oh, stop--look! What is
it?"

Billie stopped the car and they jumped out into the road, craning their
necks as they scanned the heavens.

Flying westward, but still some distance away, came what resembled at
first a gigantic bird with wings outspread, soaring even as the fish
hawk soars, as he skims through the air.

"It's an aeroplane," whispered Billie, almost speechless with
excitement.

They seemed to be alone in the great flat world of green fields. To the
right and left of them stretched level fields now cultivated and
yielding great crops of corn and wheat. Less than a hundred years ago
what would those travelers in lumbering wagons across the prairies have
thought if they had seen such a bird flying overhead?

On sailed the flying machine, like a huge dragon fly above them. In the
clear atmosphere which is peculiar to this prairie region they could
plainly see a human being riding it. Then, the birdman, as if he were
not already high enough to see the whole world stretched out beneath
him, began slowly to rise in the blue ether like a skylark at dawn. Up,
up he went, until he was merely a black speck in the heavens.

Miss Campbell sat flat down at the side of the road.

"I can't endure it," she cried. "Suppose he should never come back."

"What goes up must come down," observed Mary in a low voice much too
excited to speak naturally.

Immediately fulfilling her prophetic remark, the flying machine sailed
back into view. It was some distance beyond them now, but even so far
they could hear the clicking noise which was all the more accentuated
because no other sound followed. The motor had ceased to whir. They saw
the aeroplanist fumble frantically with the machinery, then suddenly,
with a twist of its body that was almost swifter than the eye, the
flying machine turned its nose earthward and shot straight down.

"Is that the way he lands?" demanded Miss Campbell.

"No, no," answered Billie excitedly as she hastened to crank the
machine. "Get in quickly--everybody! Something must be broken. He may be
hurt."

Another moment they were tearing down the road toward the field where
they had seen the flying machine drop.

"There he is," cried Nancy, already on the step of the Comet as Billie
drew up at the side of the road.

Now, unfortunately, a wire fence separated the field from the road to
prevent idle wandering people from trampling down the young wheat. It
was no easy matter to crawl through the interstices of barbed wire, and
Billie, in her haste, tore a great gaping hole in her automobile coat.

But she pulled off the wrap with the recklessness of a young person who
has something far more interesting on hand than pongee coats, and flung
it in the road where it was rescued by Miss Campbell.

In the middle of the field lay the flying machine, looking very much
like an enormous kite at close range. But where was the human being who
so lately had been mounting high into the air?

A man's foot sticking out from the midst of the debris revealed him at
last lying huddled up under the machine.

It was no simple matter to untangle him from the ruins, and it took all
their strength and courage, too, with that face so white and still
turned upward, but, by the grace of Providence, which watches over the
lives of some rash beings, the young man was not even hurt. He was only
stunned, and presently Miss Campbell, who had managed somehow to crawl
through the fence, brought him back to life with her smelling salts.

"If I can only keep from sneezing," he began, opening his eyes and
blinking them in amazement when he beheld the faces of five ladies
leaning over him in states of more or less extreme excitement.

The aeroplanist was really almost a boy and rather small. He had reddish
brown hair and reddish brown eyes to match. His features were regular.
His mouth firm and well modeled, and he had a square, determined-looking
jaw.

"Oh," he exclaimed. "Then it wasn't a dream. I did sneeze."

The girls privately thought his mind was wandering.

"You tumbled down out of the sky," said Nancy.

"Are you better now?" asked Miss Campbell, applying her smelling salts
to his nose.

"I'm all right," he answered, bewildered, and began slowly to pull
himself together and get up. He staggered a little as he rose and stood
looking ruefully down at the demolished aeroplane. They noticed that he
was not dressed like a messenger from Mars, as they had seen
aeroplanists attired in pictures. He wore brown clothes and a brown tie
the same shade as his hair, and a brown cap with a vizor which had
fallen on the ground.

"It is very kind of you ladies to come to my rescue," he said as his
senses returned. "I was getting on famously with the thing when I
sneezed. I felt it coming on, but it couldn't be stopped, and I lost
control and shot down like a piece of lead. Aeroplanists will have to
stop sneezing until something more reliable in the way of a flying
machine is invented."

"What are you going to do with this?" asked Billie, pointing to the
demolished machine.

"Nothing," he answered. "It's all in, as far as I can see."

"Oh, then may we have a souvenir?" demanded Nancy.

"Help yourself," he said, smiling faintly and pressing his hand to his
head, which was still buzzing with the shock of the fall.

"You poor boy," exclaimed Miss Campbell, "come right along and let us
take you somewhere. You are suffering of course, and these foolish girls
are thinking of souvenirs."

While the others assisted him across the field, Nancy lingered beside
the flying machine and presently selected a piece of the machinery; you
would probably be no wiser if I told you what piece it was, and
certainly Nancy herself was as ignorant of its purpose as a cat of a
sewing machine. She chose it because it was detached from the rest and
after she had climbed gingerly through the wire fence she stored it away
in an inner chamber of the automobile and promptly forgot all about it.

But long afterward she was to congratulate herself on obeying first
impulses, which are usually the safest.




CHAPTER II.--PETER.


They put the young man on the back seat between Miss Campbell and
Elinor, while Mary climbed in front and shared Nancy's seat beside
Chauffeur Billie.

"Where do you want to go?" asked that responsible young woman, waiting
to start the car and addressing the aeroplanist over her shoulder.

"I'm on my way West."

"So are we," interrupted Billie.

"If you put me down at any convenient place along the way, I'll be very
much obliged. I'm going all the way to San Francisco."

"But so are we," cried the girls in one voice. "We're going across the
continent."

The young man smiled for the second time, a charming smile which
radiated his entire face and seemed to kindle two warm fires in his
steady brown eyes.

"In this?" he asked.

"Why not?" Elinor was saying, somewhat on her mettle, when a motor cycle
shot past them, stopped abruptly and a man jumped off and waited beside
the road, signalling to them to stop the car.

"Pardon me, but may I ask if you saw an aeroplane fly past a little
while ago?"

Before Billie, generally the spokesman, could reply, the young stranger
broke in:

"We saw one, but it is out of sight now."

"Ah? Then it didn't fall. I thought I saw it drop. It looked very much
as if he had lost control, but I was too far away to tell."

The man waited, but the four girls and Miss Campbell remained discreetly
silent, and the wrecked aeroplanist leaned out and looked up skyward, as
if he were searching the heavens for the lost airship.

"Although aeroplanes are not very apt to fly about in great numbers,"
went on the man sarcastically, "I see you are not very observant when
they are about. I bid you good-day," and touching his cap with his hand
like a salute, he leaped on his motor cycle and sped down the road in a
cloud of dust.

"Dear me," exclaimed Miss Campbell, "what a crusty individual! But why
not have told him?"

"Because he happens to be my rival," answered the young man. "You see, a
prize has been offered for the one who flies across the continent from
San Francisco to Chicago in the shortest time. Most of the aeroplanists
think the prize is too small for the risk, and so far only a few have
entered. This fellow, Duval, doesn't want any rivals, and he has done
everything he could to disqualify me for the race. He didn't recognize
me, because he's only seen me in leather clothes with goggles and a cap
on. You see, I decided at the last moment this morning to fly westward
as far as I could. I suppose I am a good deal like the Irishman who was
challenged to drink a pail of beer, and went into another room and drank
one first to see if he could."

"But now you have no aeroplane," observed Nancy sadly.

"I have two. The other one was shipped to San Francisco. Duval has a
great many reasons for keeping an eye on me. He wants to find out what
kind of machine I'm going to use. I have kept that a profound secret,
and he wants to know how good I am at flying. You see, no one has ever
heard of me. I have never been to any public meets. I have only
practised--at--at our place."

"But," interrupted Miss Campbell, "do you think you will be able to do
this tremendous thing? Remember what you must cross? Not only the Rocky
Mountains but the desert."

"It's just as easy to fly over a desert as over a prairie," answered the
young man. "Not long ago a man flew from Italy over the Alps. If I
hadn't sneezed this morning, I might have been sailing across the
Illinois boundary this afternoon and been well on my way into Iowa."

Miss Campbell and the girls regarded him curiously. He appeared
exceedingly self-confident and very sensible, but that sneezing business
seemed a little thin.

"Do you mean to say," cried Billie incredulously, "that you expect to
fly across the country without sneezing."

"I hope so," he replied. "It's a dangerous thing to sneeze in any flying
machine, although the one I intend to use is of much finer make than
that thing which just broke down."

Suddenly Nancy began to laugh.

"I believe you are guying us," she said.

The young man flushed.

"It would be a nice return for your kindness."

"Don't be offended," put in Elinor. "She's only teasing, herself."

It was now getting on toward noon. The crisp morning air had sharpened
their appetites and it was agreed to stop at the next village for lunch.
In half an hour they had whirled into the main street of a
prosperous-looking middle-west town.

The motor guide book directed them to Snyder's and they presently pulled
up in front of a large frame building painted white with green shutters.
On the front piazza sat a number of men in armchairs, their feet on the
railing, smoking and reading the morning papers.

Before they had time to get out, the aeroplanist said to Miss Campbell:

"I am deeply obliged to you for your kindness. My name is Peter Van
Vechten. May I have the honor of asking your names?"

There was quite an old-world courtesy about this Peter Van Vechten that
appealed to the little lady, and she promptly introduced her girls and
herself.

Just at this moment a small racing car could be seen coming toward them
at a terrific speed. People and vehicles scattered at its approach, but
just before it reached the Comet it stopped short and a man jumped out
and ran to them.

"All right, Jackson," said Peter Van Vechten. "I suppose you got wind
that the aeroplane was wrecked and had a fright."

"I did, sir, indeed. But a farmer had watched through his glasses and he
saw you get into a motor. Thank heavens, you're safe, sir."

"Through the kindness of these ladies," said Peter. "Is the luggage all
here?"

"It is, sir."

"Then, with your permission, Miss Campbell, I will say good-by. Thank
you again. Perhaps we may meet on the plains."

"What month is the race?" asked Billie.

"In July. It starts the Fourth of July."

"Good-by and good luck to you," they cried, as the departing aeroplanist
leaped into the motor car beside the chauffeur, and in another moment
they were out of sight.

For awhile things seemed rather dull to Miss Campbell and the Motor
Maids, such a romantic halo encircles the head of him who flies through
the air, and this ingratiating Peter Van Vechten, with his reddish hair
and his keen brown eyes, also his polished manners, left a very deep
impression on them all.

The luncheon was poor. It was early dinner, really, with cabbage and
boiled mutton and very stiff-looking mashed potatoes, watery canned peas
and leathery pie for dessert. They were glad to get back to the Comet
again and glad to be on the road.

Already they seemed to have been traveling an endless time. But the
first day of a long journey always affects people in this way. For some
inexplicable reason they were a little homesick. The monotony of this
level country oppressed them, endless green fields, which had once been
vast prairie lands, covered with waving grass and a multitude of wild
flowers.

Late that afternoon, when they stopped for gasoline at a garage in a
thriving little village, a group of men stood about the door talking.

"Escaped in a flying machine?" said one.

"It's an up to date way to fly from justice," put in another.

"Yes, sir; I seen the paper myself at the hotel. He was a first-class
crook, and he left Chicago this morning early in one of the flying
machines at the park, where they have been giving exhibitions. They
telegraphed it all over the country when it was found out. I reckon he's
the smartest crook in the world. The paper says 'he eluded his captors
just as they were about to apprehend him; dashed through the hotel door
and jumped in a taxi. At the park he showed a forged letter signed Peter
Van Vechten, one of the aeroplanists, permitting him the use of one of
the aeroplanes for practice before the exhibition, and in five minutes
he was gone like a bird on the wing. It was only a little while later
that the guardians at the parks found out their mistake. Whether he is
still flying over the country or has lighted in some safe place, no one
knows. So far there is no trace of him whatever.'"

Strange were the sensations of the Motor Maids and Miss Campbell as they
listened to this remarkable tale.

The tank was filled, and Billie, after asking for the right road,
started the machine. It was a silent and rather sad company.

They had traveled more than a hundred miles that day because it had been
their object to leave the Middle West behind them as soon as possible,
for the more romantic regions beyond.

At last Miss Campbell burst out:

"I don't believe it. That nice brown-eyed boy!"

"Neither do we," echoed the others. "It's impossible."

This somewhat relieved their feelings, and when they reached the town
where they had planned to spend the night they were talking cheerfully.

While they were freshening up for supper half an hour later, Miss
Campbell felt in her black silk reticule for her purse, Billie having
paid all bills that day with the ready change with which she had
provided herself.

"My dears," gasped the poor little lady, "where is it?"

"What, Cousin Helen," cried Billie, frightened at the expressions of
doubt and agitation which chased themselves across her relative's face.

"My purse, child! My silver-mounted Morocco purse. I thought I had it in
my reticule, but where is it?"

They emptied the reticule. They looked in their own handbags and even
went to the garage and searched the Comet. But Miss Campbell's purse
containing fifty dollars was gone.

"At any rate, Billie," whispered Nancy that night when they had
stretched themselves wearily on the hardish bed in the hotel, "at any
rate, he had the nicest, kindest brown eyes I ever saw."

"Even now," answered Billie, "there may be some mistake."




CHAPTER III.--IN SEARCH OF A DINNER.


"This is assuredly a land of peace and plenty," observed Miss Campbell,
somewhat sleepily, as she leaned back in the seat and half closed her
eyes.

"Meaning 'too much of a muchness,' Cousin Helen," teased Billie. "Are
you beginning to yearn already for something to happen?"

"My dear, how can you suggest such things?" cried her relative opening
her blue eyes wide in an innocent protest of such an accusation. "An
aged spinster like me craving excitement! What an idea!"

"But Iowa is not thrilling," admitted Elinor. "These endless cornfields
are like a sea without ship and what could be duller than a sail-less
ocean?"

"But there are farm houses," put in Mary.

"Just stupid wooden buildings," answered Elinor scornfully.

The truth is our