The Motor Girls in the Mountains or The Gypsy Girl's Secret Part 23

"Like it?" called out Miss Moore, looking at her with a smile.

"Do I?" replied Cora. "It's just heavenly!"

The aviatrix gazed at her with approval. She had found a kindred spirit.

"You're a thoroughbred," she said. "Many girls would be frightened to death. They'd be begging me to descend."

"No danger of my doing that," laughed Cora. "I could go on like this forever, if I were not so anxious to get back to my friends."

They were flying now at a height of five hundred feet, and the air, despite the August sun, was cold. Miss Moore had given Cora a coat and a pair of gloves from her kit, however, so that she was fairly well protected.

"What a glorious view!" exclaimed Cora ecstatically, as the vast panorama of field and forest unrolled itself as far as the eye could see. "Oh, how I envy you!"

Miss Moore smiled.

"It _is_ beautiful," she a.s.sented. "But I'm kept so busy with listening to my engine and shaping my course that I don't have as much time to enjoy it as I would like to. That's one of the advantages of being a pa.s.senger. But look around now, and see if you can recognize your camp.

I'll make a landing as near to it as I can."

Cora looked eagerly about.

"There's the sawmill!" she exclaimed. "And there's the road that leads from there to Kill Kare," she added. "All you have to do is to follow that road south for a few miles, and we'll come to the house. And there's a big cleared s.p.a.ce around it that will make a splendid landing place for the aeroplane."

Miss Moore turned in the indicated direction, and followed the road that Cora had pointed out.

"I can never thank you enough for rescuing me as you have," said Cora, her voice broken with emotion.

"It's made me almost as happy as it has you," returned Miss Moore. "It will be one of the pleasantest memories of my life."

"But it's delayed you on your trip, hasn't it?"

"Suppose it has?" replied Miss Moore. "Do you suppose I would have hesitated on that account to bring you home? But set your mind at rest on that score. I was an hour or more ahead of my schedule anyway. You see,"

she added gaily, "we girls can give the men a handicap and yet beat them out."

Cora laughed gleefully.

"Of course we can!" she exclaimed. "But oh, Miss Moore, there's dear old Kill Kare now! See, over there among the trees."

"I see it," was the reply, as Miss Moore's practised eye looked out for the landing place.

She touched a lever and began to descend in a sweeping curve.

When Jack and Walter, together with Joel, reached the picnic ground, they found that Paul had not been idle. He had been searching for Cora in ever widening circles during every moment of their absence, but a glance at his disconsolate face showed that he had learned nothing.

Some of the workers from the mill had already scattered in the woods, going in different directions. Other volunteers came straggling in until the number had reached a score. Joel, because of his knowledge of the woods, was put in general charge of the search.

Antic.i.p.ating that Cora might not be found before dark closed in, torches were prepared in large numbers and distributed among the men. It was arranged that the place where they now were should be the general rendezvous, at which all the searching parties would report, and to which Cora should be brought as soon as found.

Most of the men had either rifles or revolvers, and a copious supply of ammunition was furnished by the foreman of the mill. Joel had brought from the barn a number of skyrockets that had been left over from the previous Fourth of July celebration, and it was arranged that one of these should be set off every hour through the night. By following the course of this and marking the direction from which it came, the searching parties could keep the location of the camp in mind. It was hoped also that Cora might see them and thereby be guided in the right direction.

Paul had driven back to Kill Kare, and had secured unlimited food and coffee for the refreshment of the searchers, in case the hunt was prolonged.

All through the waning afternoon the search continued. And with the coming of night it doubled in intensity. Fresh parties took the place of exhausted ones that came straggling back. The woods were alive with torches.

It seemed certain that, with so many hunters, success ought to have been almost certain. But Joel knew that twenty times that number might search in that vast wilderness without running across the one they sought. At best it was a gamble, with the odds against them.

Morning came and found the boys fairly dropping with fatigue and torn with grief and disappointment. Jack was almost out of his mind with reflecting on his sister's plight.

"We'll drive back to Kill Kare and telegraph for bloodhounds," he said.

"Joel says that there are a couple he knows of at the county seat. If they're sent on the early train to the nearest town they ought to get here by noon. We'll put them to work at once, and see what they can do."

They left Joel in charge of the search, and drove back gloomily to Camp Kill Kare.

There was plenty of "care" there that morning. Neither Aunt Betty nor the girls had been able to sleep. The thought of Cora out in the wilderness all through that long night had driven them fairly frantic.

And their hearts sank still further when the boys came back to report their failure.

"We ought to telegraph to your mother at once," declared Aunt Betty, wringing her hands.

"It would almost kill mother to get a telegram like that," said Jack moodily. "It wouldn't do any good, and in the meantime Cora may be found.

We'll wait, anyway, until after we've tried the bloodhounds."

They ate briefly and scantily of breakfast, for none of them had any heart for food. Then they went outside to make ready for their trip to the rendezvous.

The boys were piling into the car when Belle gave a sudden exclamation and pointed upward.

"There's an aeroplane!" she cried.

They followed her gaze and saw the aircraft coming toward them at a rapid rate.

As they looked, they saw that it was beginning to slacken speed and at the same time was coming closer to earth.

"Looks as though it were going to land somewhere about here," remarked Jack. "Perhaps it's having trouble."

As it drew closer they could see that there were two people in it.

"And one of them's a woman!" cried Walter, as he noted the fluttering of a skirt.

"She's waving at us!" exclaimed Belle excitedly. Then her voice rose to a scream.

"It's Cora! It's Cora!"

"Cora!" shrieked Bess.

"Cora!" echoed Aunt Betty.

As for the boys, they gave one look and tumbled out of the automobile, yelling, shouting, thumping each other on the back. The girls sobbed and laughed, and hugged Aunt Betty and each other. None of them had the least idea of what they were doing or saying, and none of them cared. They were fairly mad with joy.

They ran out under the plane as it circled around looking for its landing. And when it settled down as gracefully as a swan and finally stopped, there was a wild rush for it, and the next second Cora was unstrapped, dragged from her seat and was being devoured with hugs and kisses.