The Automobile Girls at Chicago Part 18

Barbara glanced slowly up at the solemn faces above her.

"Is that all?" asked Olive.

"Yes. That is the last entry in the journal, showing that the former Mr.

Presby did not return, as you already have told us that he did not."

"What do you make of it, dear?" questioned Olive thoughtfully.

"It is a clue and a direction to the buried treasure. There can be no doubt of that."

"Yes, but we don't understand it," spoke up Ruth. "I doubt if we ever shall."

"It's my opinion that Mr. T. W. P. wasn't in his right mind when he wrote that," declared Mollie with emphasis. "I think the Indians must have gone to his head."

"This is no joking matter, Mollie," rebuked Barbara. "Can't you be serious for once in your life? We must study this."

"What do you say if I send for Mr. Stevens, girls?" cried Olive. "He has studied this mystery more thoroughly than anyone else and he will no doubt understand the veiled allusion to the treasure. Suppose we copy it so we can read it more easily. Wait! I'll get a pencil."

Olive ran downstairs to her room, now not a little excited.

"I've sent Tom after Bob Stevens," she called, as she burst into the attic on her return. "Now read it to me and I will put it down."

"Perhaps I had better do that," answered Bab, reaching for the pencil.

"I know the writing better than you do and I want to make the copy exactly like the original. There," she added, after having carefully copied the extract from the journal.

Olive regarded it perplexedly, Grace, Mollie and Ruth bending over her shoulder as she read and reread the extract from the old Presby diary.

"I must show this to father and mother," exclaimed Olive suddenly, as she whisked out of the room with Ruth, Mollie and Grace racing after her. Barbara, once more absorbed in the journal over which she was bending with wrinkled forehead, did not seem to realize that she had been left alone.

"Oh, if it should be true! If it should lead us to the treasure! If we could save Treasureholme for the Presbys it would be glorious." Barbara got up and began pacing back and forth. She saw nothing of the dingy garret room. Her imagination was traveling at express-train speed. Bab stood leaning back against the heavy wainscoting, with her eyes fixed on the ceiling, thinking.

"Oh, Barbara!" called Ruth's voice from the foot of the stairway.

"Yes?"

"Come down. Mercy! What was that?" A mighty crash shook the old house to its foundations. The shock seemed to come from above. Ruth sped up the stairs on winged feet. Those below stairs heard her utter a frightened scream.

"Come! Oh, come quickly!" cried Ruth Stuart in a voice of terror.

CHAPTER XIII

THE MYSTERY OF THE ATTIC

THE sound of running feet was heard on the floor below following Ruth's cry for help. Olive, Mollie and Grace had heard it from the foot of the stairs on the ground floor. Mr. and Mrs. Presby, sitting in the dining room, had also heard the cry and started for the stairs. Tom, who was down in the cellar, heard the girls running, and started up the stairs three steps at a time, instinctively realizing that something was wrong.

His first thought was that the girls in the garret had set the house on fire.

The three girls fairly tore up the stairs to the attic in response to Ruth's cry, getting in each other's way on the narrow stairs as they ran. Tom was close at their heels, while his father and mother followed more slowly.

At first they could distinguish nothing but Ruth's figure dimly outlined in a haze of dust that filled the air.

"Fire!" cried Grace.

"No!" roared Tom. "It's dust. Somebody's been kicking up a fine smudge here. What's the matter? Have you folks gone crazy?"

"Ruth! Ruth! What is it?" cried Olive.

"It's Bab," moaned Ruth.

"Bab?" cried the girls.

For the first time since reaching the attic their thoughts turned to Barbara Thurston. But where was she? Nowhere in sight. Mr. Presby came limping into the room, followed by his wife very much out of breath.

"Wha--wha--what is the cause of all this uproar?" demanded Mr. Presby testily.

"It's Bab! It's Bab, I tell you," almost screamed Ruth. "Oh, what has happened?"

"That's what we would like to know," retorted Mr. Presby.

"Where is Bab?" demanded Tom, who had been nosing around the room like a terrier.

"She--she's gone," moaned Ruth. Her face was pale, her eyes wide with fright. Tom rushed to the windows, which were tightly closed.

"What fell?" he questioned sharply, halting in front of Ruth.

"I--I don't know. I--I wasn't here. I was at the foot of the garret stairs when I heard that terrible crash."

The dust, slowly settling, gave them a clearer view of the attic.

Barbara Thurston was not in sight.

"What has become of Bab? Why don't you look behind the chests?"

demanded Mollie, gathering up her skirts, darting here and there, kicking aside the heaps of old clothing that had been turned out on the floor.

Mollie paused with a dazed look in her eyes.

"She's gone," whispered the girl.

"Yes, she's gone, all right," answered Tom. "I know what she has done.

She's played a trick on all of you. I know her. She is a sharp one.

She'd catch you napping when you were looking right at her. She must have gone downstairs after you did, and----"

"No, no," protested Ruth excitedly. "She never left this attic by the stairway."

"Calm yourself, my dear," begged Mr. Presby in a somewhat more gentle voice, at the same time laying a hand on Ruth Stuart's shoulder. "Now let us understand this affair. You say Barbara was up here--she did not go downstairs with you?"