The Camp Fire Girls Go Motoring Part 17

"But I tell you it isn't my trunk," said the first, "and I'm not going to carry it. The rear end of the car hits the b.u.mpers now every time we strike a b.u.mp in the road and I won't have any unnecessary weight back there."

"Oh say, be a good sport and carry it," said the second man. "It's a good looking trunk and I can get something for it when we get back to the city. But I hate to pay express on it."

"How did you get it, anyway?" asked the first man.

Gladys, who had p.r.i.c.ked up her ears at the word "trunk" and was intently listening to the above conversation, was disappointed in not hearing the end of it. For, with the question just recorded the two men moved across the street toward a car which stood there. Just then the tank of the Striped Beetle was filled and they were released. Gladys steered across the street just as the engine of the other car started up. But she had caught a glimpse of the trunk under discussion, standing on the unoccupied rear seat of the car, and there, full in the sunlight, were the initials GME, Cleveland, O. Without a doubt it was her trunk.

The other car gained speed rapidly and began to draw away from them.

Gladys put the Striped Beetle on its mettle and followed. They pa.s.sed through several towns at the same high rate of speed, never gaining on the car ahead of them until it stopped in front of a hotel in one place. Gladys also stopped. She jumped out of the car and was alongside the other before either man was out. She began without preliminary.

"Excuse me," she said, "but we have lost our trunk from our car and the one you have is exactly like it. Would you mind telling me whether it is your own or not?" The two men looked at each other.

One of them, the one who had objected to carrying the trunk, flushed red and looked uncomfortable. As he was driving the car it was to him that Gladys had addressed her remarks.

"It's not mine," he answered. "It belongs to Mr. Johnson, this gentleman here."

"Yes, it's mine," said the man referred to, as if daring her to dispute his statement.

Gladys was nonplused. There was something queer about their possession of the trunk she knew from the conversation she had overheard.

"You say your name is Johnson?" she asked. "Then how does it come that you have the initials GME--my initials--on your trunk?"

The man glared at her in silence. A crowd began to gather around them on the sidewalk. A policeman elbowed his way to the front. "What's the matter here?" he asked.

"Lady says the man stole her trunk," replied one of the bystanders.

Gladys grew hot all over when she heard that, because she had not said a word about the man's having stolen the trunk, although that thought was uppermost in her mind.

"How about it?" asked the policeman.

"It's none of your business," growled the man addressed as Mr. Johnson.

"That's my trunk, whether those are my initials or not. It was given me in exchange for something else."

"But I believe it's mine," said Gladys, looking helplessly around the circle of faces. "It was stolen off our car in Ft. Wayne."

"It was no such thing," said Mr. Johnson, hotly. "We'll soon find out,"

said the policeman. "What was in your trunk, lady?"

Gladys described several articles which were inside, and mentioned that it was lined with grey and had the same initials on the inside of the cover.

"Open the trunk," said the Solomon in bra.s.s b.u.t.tons.

Mr. Johnson had no key, which was another suspicious fact. Gladys produced her key and unlocked the trunk. It was absolutely empty. There was the grey lining all right and the initials on the inside of the cover, GME, Cleveland, O.

"Disposed of the contents," said a voice from the sidewalk.

Hinpoha, who had been on a pinnacle of hope for her scarf ever since they had recognized the trunk, slumped into despair again when she saw that it was empty.

"Is that your trunk, lady?" asked the policeman.

"It looks like it," said Gladys.

"It answered her description all right," said the voice in the circle.

"Where did you get the trunk and from whom?" asked the policeman of Mr.

Johnson.

"None of your business," replied that individual, with a savage look.

"But it's mine, I tell you."

Here his companion pulled out his watch and uttered an exclamation.

"Give her the trunk and come along," he said, in a stage whisper.

"We'll never make it if we stand here bantering all day."

Scowling like a thundercloud, Mr. Johnson gave the trunk a savage kick as it stood on the sidewalk and got back into the car, snapping out that it was his and never would have given it up if he wasn't in such a tearing hurry. The grey car glided away in a cloud of dust and the policeman lifted the trunk to the rack of the Striped Beetle.

"Fellow stole it, all right," rose the murmurs on every side, "or he wouldn't have been so willing to give it up. Probably threw the contents away. Well, you've got the trunk, lady, and that's worth more than what was in it."

Hinpoha could not agree with this, of course. That scarf was worth more in her eyes than the price of a dozen trunks, and she was not very much overjoyed at having the trunk returned without the scarf, for it was certain now that the contents were stolen and would never be recovered.

They arrived in Chicago during the afternoon and went directly to the Carrie Wentworth Inn. As they got out at the curb a man lounged down from the doorway and approached them. "You are under arrest," he said, quietly.

"Arrest!" gasped Gladys, thinking of all the traffic rules she might have broken in crossing the busy corner they just pa.s.sed. "What for?

And who are you, anyway, you're not a policeman."

The man opened his coat and showed an official badge. "I'm a policeman all right, you'll find," he said, calmly.

"What have we done?" gasped Gladys. The trunk was in her mind now. What if it were not theirs after all and they were to be accused of stealing it!

"You are wanted in connection with an attempt to steal a diamond necklace from the home of Simon McClure," said the detective, for such he was.

"What?" said Gladys, in sheer amazement. "I never heard of such a person."

"Tell that to the police," said the man facetiously, "and in the meantime, just come along with me." He got into the car and motion them to follow. Too much dazed to resist, they obeyed.

CHAPTER XIII.

Sahwah's vanishing from the car was so uncanny and mysterious that, for a few minutes, we could think of nothing but a supernatural agency. The wind was like the wail of a banshee, and to our excited eyes the mist wraiths hovering over the swamp were like dancing figures. The croaking of the frogs was suddenly full of menace. They were not real frogs croaking down there in the mud; they were evil spirits dwelling in the swamp and they held the secret of Sahwah's disappearance. Shudders ran up and down our spines and the perspiration began to break out in our faces.

"Did Sahwah get into the car again after she helped you open the gate?"

asked Nyoda.

At the sound of her voice our fear of the supernatural vanished and we were back to reality again. We were lost on a lonely road, it is true, but it was a (more or less) solid dirt road in the misty mid-region of Indiana, and not a ghoul-haunted pathway in the misty mid-region of Weir.

We all declared Sahwah had gotten into the car.