The Motor Maids Across the Continent Part 28

"Yes," she replied, quickly withdrawing her hand. Then she hurried in and locked the door behind her.

CHAPTER XIX.-A DAY OF SURPRISES.

"The Comet is going to have a rest to-day," observed Billie the next morning at the breakfast table. "He's being screwed up and oiled and cleaned for his last spurt across the continent."

"For my part," said Miss Campbell, "I'm glad to take a rest from the Comet. I think I have automobile legs, just as ocean travelers have sea legs. When I'm sitting still, I seem to be constantly moving, and when I'm moving, I feel like a young bird learning to fly. I believe that by the time we reach San Francisco, my limbs will refuse their office, as grandpapa used to say."

The girls laughed at the picture Miss Campbell drew of herself.

"I think a bath in the lake will do us all good," said Billie. "You can't sink, you know, Cousin Helen. All you have to do is to lift your feet and you float about like a little chip."

"First to the Temple; then to see Brigham Young's houses, and then to the lake," said Mary, studying the guide-book.

"And then back to the hotel for a good night's rest on a perfectly delightful bed," added Miss Campbell, who had enjoyed her night's sleep exceedingly.

After breakfast, they inquired at the desk for a message from Daniel Moore, but he had left none and was not in his room.

As the five ladies left the hotel, half an hour later, a messenger boy pa.s.sed them on the run.

"A rush message for Miss Helen Campbell," he said breathlessly to the clerk.

"She's gone out," said the young man, looking up the number of her room and examining her letter box with official deliberation. "Her key's on the hook."

And at that moment, Miss Campbell, with a swish of her silk skirts and a flutter of blue chiffon veils, had turned the corner and was out of sight. If she had lingered three minutes longer over the breakfast table; or if the messenger boy had hurried his steps still more, or the clerk had watched more carefully the comings and goings of the guests of the hotel, the tide of this story would certainly have been changed.

As it happened, the Motor Maids and Miss Helen Campbell did not return to the hotel until late that evening, and all that time this important letter was waiting for them.

"On to the Temple!" cried Billie, engaging a little boy to guide them to that enormous structure.

"I don't like it at all," announced Nancy, as they approached the Mormon church. "It's stern and hard and ugly, and I am sure that Mr. John James Stone is just a chip of granite out of one of the sides."

"He does bear rather a strong family resemblance," said Miss Campbell, gazing rather fearfully at the great structure.

But opinions differed about the Temple.

"I think it's very fine," said Billie, "if only for its bigness."

"I like it as long as I don't think of it as a church," observed Elinor.

"I'm sure I couldn't say my prayers in it, without feeling that G.o.d was a cruel king who would punish me severely for my sins."

"Well, that is what they believe, isn't it?" asked Mary.

"The only thing I know about their belief," observed Miss Campbell, with a top-lofty air, "is that they frown on old maids."

"They would never frown on you, dearest cousin, if they saw you first,"

laughed Billie.

The doors to the Temple were closed to visitors that morning, but their little guide led them behind the structure, where stood the Tabernacle, a peculiar building, resembling a monster egg. Here was the great organ, which Elinor desired particularly to hear, and, by a lucky chance, when they entered the auditorium, the place was filled with music. Miss Campbell, with Elinor and Mary, seated herself in one of the pews to listen, while Billie and Nancy wandered up a side aisle, looking very much like two pigmies under the vast dome of the roof. Presently they also sat down and composed themselves to listen to the strains of the wedding march, the first notes of which had been sounded on the organ.

Some one touched Billie on the shoulder.

It was Evelyn Stone.

"Just for a moment, so that I can talk to you. No one will see us; there."

Unnoticed by the others, the three girls tip-toed down the aisle to the entrance, where they hid themselves in a recess in the wall.

"I've been over to the annex with father and the florist," she said. "I am to be married there to-morrow, you know-at least, I suppose I am."

The annex was another chapel connected with the Temple.

"Poor Daniel Moore," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Billie. "We are awfully sorry for him.

We think he's one of the nicest men we ever knew."

"Do you?" exclaimed Evelyn, clasping Billie's arm and smiling into her face, as if she herself had been paid a high compliment.

"Indeed we do," cried Nancy.

"Oh, dear; oh, dear," exclaimed the girl, beating her hands together.

"It would be a great scandal if I ran away on my wedding day. But I am so unhappy. Oh, so unhappy, and I do want to see Daniel so much. Why, if he wasn't married, didn't he ever come near me?" she added, stamping her foot angrily.

"He tried and tried, and wrote letters, and everything-but he couldn't get near you. Your father--"

"Oh, yes, father, of course," said Evelyn, pressing her lips together and frowning. "It's not only that Ebenezer is a Mormon. It's other things-money, I think. Father is involved, I'm certain of it, and Ebenezer is rich-very rich."

"You needn't run away with Daniel to-morrow," put in Billie irrelevantly. "You can run away with-with the Comet, our motor car--"

"Hush," interrupted Evelyn. "I'll send you a note to-night. There they come now. Good-by, you dear, kind friends. I feel as if I had known you always."

The two girls hurried back into the Tabernacle and a little later emerged from another door and were conducted by their small guide to the homes of Brigham Young. And very fine houses they were, "The Beehive"

especially, with its quaint dormer windows and sloping roof. But somehow, our five spinsters were not deeply interested in these historic homes, and after wandering around the city for another hour, they boarded a small train headed for Salt Lake.

"When people are traveling, they will do anything," complained Miss Campbell, as she tucked a small black bathing suit under one arm and disappeared in the bath house. "They will wear hired bathing suits, a thing I never expected to stoop to--" her voice continued from the interior of her compartment.

"And sleep on the ground," called Elinor from across the pa.s.sage.

"And eat with robbers," began Nancy, when Mary stopped her.

"Hush, Nancy," she said. "How do you know there are not people listening to you?"

A few moments later they strolled out to the pier in their hired bathing suits. A woman attendant looked at them closely and then disappeared into a telephone booth.

Some morbid people with bad digestions have premonitions of approaching trouble, but our four happy young girls and Miss Campbell, youngest and happiest of them all in her heart, had no inkling, on that glorious day, of disasters to come. They sat silently in a row on the beach and gazed enchanted at the wonderful scene. There was not a ripple in the inland sea which stretched before them like a sheet of green gla.s.s. In its bosom were reflected the encircling mountains, mysterious and mystical.

They, too, were like mountains of gla.s.s, in many pale colors, pinks, blues, delicate greens and lavenders.

"It's like a dream picture," said Mary softly. "I can hardly believe it's true. No wonder it's called 'the dead sea.' It's so silent and still."