The Automobile Girls at Chicago: or, Winning Out Against Heavy Odds

"Look! Oh, look!" she gasped, scarcely above a whisper.

What they saw made the "Automobile Girls'" faces turn white with fear.

CHAPTER XI

GIVING AN ATTIC PARTY

PEERING in at them was a hideous yellow face with a nose that in the light from the room seemed to be fiery red. The face was pressed against the window pane. Now a long-drawn, dismal groan sounded from the other side of the window.

"It's a ghost!" cried Grace.

Barbara, however, had seen more than the other girls, and, mustering up all her courage, ran to the door.

"Come back!" called the girls anxiously. Bab kept on, unheeding their cries. As she jerked the outside door open, they heard a crash and the frightful face suddenly disappeared from the window. Ruth and Olive rushed to the door. Both girls remembered that an old rain barrel had stood under that window for a long time.

"I've got the spook!" shouted Bab triumphantly. "I picked it out of the rain barrel." She came in, dragging by an ear the irrepressible Tom.

"Thomas Warrington Presby, what does this mean?" demanded Olive sternly.

"The – the rain barrel went to pieces," complained Tom.

"Oh! Was it you who scared us out of our wits?" questioned Mollie.

"I knew it was a false face almost the instant I saw it," said Barbara. "Thomas, I fear I shall have to turn you over to your father. You have evidently forgotten some things."

Tom wriggled, his face worked anxiously.

"Please don't. Maul me, do anything you want to punish me. I won't squeal, but don't peach to father."

"Girls, what shall we do with him?" asked Bab.

"I move we make him sit down on the rug and eat marshmallows," suggested Ruth.

"The very idea," agreed Mollie.

"But we want them ourselves," objected Grace.

"I have another box," admitted Olive. "Your father sent two boxes, though I did not intend to tell you about the second one just yet."

It was agreed that Tom's punishment should be a sweet one. Tom grinned broadly.

"Those things are for girls. I can swallow a boxful without winking an eyelid," he declared. "Gimme the box."

"No, Thomas, you aren't going to eat them that way. We are going to wait on you and help you to every mouthful," answered Barbara sweetly. "It isn't every boy who has five nice girls to wait on him when he eats. Is it, Tommy?"

"No," answered the boy in a doubtful tone. He did not exactly like the look of things now. Barbara placed a firm hand on his arm and set him down on a rug in front of the fireplace. Tommy was closer to the fire than was comfortable, but there seemed to be no escape for him. The five girls speared as many marshmallows, toasted them and thrust them flaming at the boy. Tommy gulped down the first one with evident enjoyment. Four others went down easily. Tommy decided that marshmallows were pretty good stuff. He called for more, and got them. There was always a stick with a flaming cube on the end of it ready to be thrust into his mouth. Tommy rolled his eyes with satisfaction.

"I could take punishment like this for a week at a stretch. More!"

Still the girls fed him. Even Olive was gentle and considerate. Tommy did not recall ever having seen her more so. All the girls were very kind to him, but there was a mischievous twinkle in their eyes that Tommy was not astute enough to read.

After a time the marshmallows began to take on a bitter taste. He did not appear to be eating them with the same relish as before.

"That stuff's no good for men," he jeered.

"Have another, Tommy," answered Bab, thrusting a blue flame into the boy's face.

"You needn't burn a fellow up," he rebuked, then swallowed the marshmallow with a gulp.

"Here, Tommy, is a nice, large one," added Mollie.

Tom's eyes were rolling. His face that had appeared very red when he first sat down before the fire, had grown several shades paler. The girls continued to feed him with marshmallows, forcing one after another upon him.

"I won't take another – " Tom did not finish what he had started to say. Olive thrust a hot marshmallow into the boy's open mouth. Tommy closed his mouth instantly, but not soon enough. The hot sweet clung to the roof of his mouth, bringing from Tommy a yell of pain.

"I'll be even with you girls for this," he howled, the tears starting from his eyes as he bounded for the kitchen for a drink of water. A shout of merry laughter followed him. Tommy felt very sick and staggered off to bed, where, half an hour later, his mother found him groaning. In response to Mrs. Presby's anxious inquiries, Tommy explained that he had an "awful stomachache."

"He deserved it," declared Olive. "He will learn to let us girls alone, I hope. Nevertheless, we got even with him this time."

"Yes, revenge is sweet," observed Bab, whereat the girls groaned dismally.

It had been decided that the "Automobile Girls" and Olive were to drive into Chicago on the following morning to bring Miss Sallie and Mr. Stuart also to Treasureholme, if he could be induced to return with them. Ruth felt too that Mr. A. Bubble had not been getting enough exercise of late. Her companions agreed with her. But the next morning dawned most disappointingly. A great gale was blowing in from Lake Michigan, accompanied by blinding flurries of snow. It was not a cheerful outlook. The day was dark and the wind bitter cold.

Ruth was for starting out just the same, but a telephone call from Miss Sallie while the girls were at breakfast was to the effect that Mr. Stuart had absolutely forbidden their starting out in such a storm.

"I am sorry, girls, but when dad puts it that way he means what he says. I speak from long experience," declared Ruth. "We shall have to wait until to-morrow."

"This storm is likely to last for some days," announced Mr. Presby.

Ruth made a wry face.

"We will explore for the treasure if we have to stay in the house all the time," said Bab. "A day like this makes one feel mysterious."

"And creepy," added Mollie. "Why, good morning, Tommy. How are you to-day?" she smiled, as Master Thomas Presby took his place at the breakfast table. Tommy grunted out some unintelligible reply. For some reason he was not in the best of humor that morning.

In the meantime Olive was trying to think up some entertainment that would amuse the girls on a stormy day.

"I have it," she cried. "How would you girls like an attic party?"

They did not quite understand, never having heard of an attic party.

"What do we do at an attic party?" asked Mollie. "Do we have luncheon in the attic?"

"No. It is an entirely new idea with me. My idea is that we go to the attic and rummage. There are old chests and trunks up there, together with all sorts of odds and ends, as is usual with a family garret."

The girls beamed on her.

"That will be perfectly splendid," cried Mollie. "Remember, Bab, how we used to rummage in our garret on rainy days?"

"It will be a great fun," answered Bab.

"As we fear we may have to leave the old place," continued Olive, "we wish to overhaul everything up there, burning such stuff as we have no use for, saving anything that may be of use in the future. You girls can help me clear out the place."

"Am I in on this game?" interrupted Tom.

"Yes, if you will behave yourself," replied Olive, giving him a severe look.

"I can carry out the stuff that you want burned," he suggested.

Such willingness on the part of Tommy was unusual. Olive gave him a smile of approval.

"You shall have some more marshmallows for that," declared Ruth.

A pained look appeared on the boy's face.

"I don't want any marshmallows," he growled. "No more girls' food for me."

The "Automobile Girls" giggled. Mr. and Mrs. Presby paid no attention to this conversation. They were not in possession of the secret. The girls were eager for the attic party. There is always an element of mystery in an old family garret. This was especially so at Treasureholme. Everything about the old place savored of mystery. Then there was the buried treasure, which, even though it might be a myth, lent an atmosphere of greater mystery than all the rest.

Little time was lost in getting to the garret, the girls first, however, putting on the oldest skirts they possessed. Olive explained that the place was full of dust and cobwebs.

Tom hurried upstairs ahead of them. They followed a winding, narrow stairway to the upper floor. To their surprise, the ceiling was high, the side walls were heavily wainscoted, an unusual condition for a garret. A broad chimney passing up through the centre of the big room took the edge off the chill atmosphere of the morning, although they could hear the wind whistle and wail about the gables. There were shadowy corners holding old-fashioned trunks. Here and there were old family pictures in faded, chipped frames, old clothes, curtains, books, broken and old-fashioned furniture, in short, a varied and ancient collection of odds and ends that almost filled the place.

"Oh, girls, isn't this jolly!" exclaimed Bab, halting at the head of the stairs, taking in the scene eagerly. "I know we shall have a perfectly splendid time up here, and who knows but that we may unearth some of your ancestors' family skeletons, Olive?"

"Tom will dispose of them promptly if you find any," answered Olive.

"I'll make their old bones rattle. You just watch me," announced Tom.

"Now, girls, go ahead and browse to your heart's content. We are going to empty every trunk and chest and box in the place. We may find something exciting before we get through up here."

Olive's prophecy was a true one. They were going to meet with exciting experiences in the old garret, even more exciting than any of them had dreamed possible. They began eagerly to turn out the contents of trunks and boxes upon the garret floor, first dragging the receptacles up where the light from one or another of the windows would shine down on their work.

CHAPTER XII

A CURIOUS OLD JOURNAL

"OH, here's a bundle of letters, ever and ever so old!" called Grace. Hers was the first find of interest, "Wouldn't it be splendid if I had unearthed an old romance?"

"Give them to Olive," suggested Bab. "We have no right to read them."

Grace promptly handed the packet to Olive, who turned them over reflectively.

"The writers of these have been dead for many, many years. There can be no harm in our reading the letters. However, let's defer that pleasure until another time. Here, Tom, you might carry out those old clothes. They are so moth-eaten that they are likely to fall apart before you can get them outside." Tom reluctantly gathered up an armful and went stamping down the garret stairs.

Old clothes, trinkets, some of them of value, recipes for cooking, written on the fly leaves of books and on scraps of paper, a varied assortment of everything, including early photographs of forgotten persons, were discovered. Everything was assorted and placed in piles for future disposal. The girls' faces and hands were covered with dust long before they had gone through the contents of the first few trunks.

Nothing of unusual interest had been discovered after something more than an hour's rummaging. Tom had made so many trips to the back yard with rubbish that he was tired. Finally he rebelled, declaring that he wouldn't tramp up and down those stairs again for the whole of Treasureholme.

Ruth found a chest of books in very old bindings. She called Bab over.

"Here, dear. You are simply crazy over old books. Here are some that will keep you busy for the rest of the morning."

Bab ran over, and with a little chuckle of delight dropped down on her knees in front of the open chest. She lifted out the ancient bindings almost reverently, ran the pages through her fingers, pausing here and there to read a line or a page, or a faded notation in pencil, then carefully piled the books by the side of the chest. She was so wholly absorbed in the contents of the chest that she failed to hear the lively chatter going on about her.

About half way down in the chest she found a thin, leather-covered volume, showing indications of long usage and much thumbing. On the front page she read, "Journal of T. W. P."

"Olive, who was 'T. W. P.'?"

"'T. W. P.'? Why that's Tom's initials. Wait! Did you find that in one of those old books?"

Bab nodded.

"Then it must refer to Thomas Warrington Presby. He is the gentleman who is supposed to have been scalped by the Indians, the man who buried the treasure that we have had all the fuss and excitement about. What is the book?"

"It is his journal. His diary, I think we would call it. May I read it?"

"Of course. I hope you may find something interesting in it."

The reading of the diary was not easy. The ink was faded and the writing was so peculiar that Bab deciphered it with some difficulty. Bab curled up on a pile of old clothes under a window and buried her nose in the old diary. She found it fascinating to read the diary of the man who actually buried the treasure that had made the name of Treasureholme well known in all that part of the country.

The entries in the diary dealt with the routine affairs of the life of the owner. Then there were other and more absorbing passages. One that made the girl's pulses quicken was the following:

"Rumors of Indian troubles are afloat. Jake was wounded by an arrow to-day, shot from somewhere in the forest back of the house. But no Indians were seen. We shall soon have to seek safety in the fort, I fear. What to do with my worldly goods when we go is the question that is troubling me now."

"Oh!" breathed Barbara.

"Does it blow hot or cold?" questioned Olive.

"It seems to be getting warm," replied Bab. "He is talking about the treasure."

"What?" The girls were on their feet in an instant. Barbara read the entry to them.

"Oh, fiddle!" sniffed Mollie. "That doesn't amount to anything. Don't arouse my curiosity again unless you have something worth while."

Barbara considered that she had found something worth while, but she made no comment on Mollie's remark. Instead, the girl returned to her perusal of the old diary, reading each page carefully, not knowing when a word or a sentence might give a clue to the mystery all were seeking to solve. The girls went on with their rummaging and their lively chatter. Tom had gone to sleep on a heap of bed spreads that were yellow with age. The ghosts of the past did not trouble this healthy young country boy. Mollie crouched down beside him, gently tickling his ear with a feather that she had found in a trunk. Mollie nearly exploded with merriment to see Tommy fight an imaginary fly in his sleep. The other girls were soon attracted to the game, though Barbara was entirely oblivious of what was going on. The girls gathered noiselessly about Mollie and Tom, shaking with silent laughter, taking care not to awaken the sleeping boy.

Tom's face twitched nervously. After a little one eye opened ever so little then closed warily. The girls did not observe the movement of the eyelid. Then all of a sudden things began to happen. Tom, with incredible quickness, leaped to his feet, and began laying about him with a folded bed spread. Mollie was the first to go down under the attack. The others tried to get away from that sturdily wielded spread, but were not quick enough, however. Tom did considerable execution with his unwieldly weapon before the girls finally threw themselves upon him. Then Tom went down and out. The girls dragged him to the stairway and started him sliding down the stairs, feet first. With faces flushed, eyes sparkling, brushing truant wisps of hair from their foreheads, the girls returned to their exploration of the old chests. First Olive closed and locked the door that opened onto the staircase.

"There! I think we shall have peace now," she announced.

Suddenly Barbara uttered a sharp little cry.

"Girls! Girls! Come here! Oh, come here!"

The girls with one accord rushed pell-mell across the garret. Excitement reigned for a few seconds.

"I've found it! I've found it!" shouted Barbara.

"Found the treasure?" cried a chorus of voices.

"It's here, here!" she exclaimed, waving the little leather-bound journal above her head.

"What have you found?" demanded Olive, showing less excitement than her companions.

"This entry. It means something. I don't know just what, but I know it means something."

"Read it, read it!" demanded the girls.

"The item is a month later than the one I found in the journal in which they were afraid the Indians were going to make trouble. Listen to this. If you don't think I have found something you are not half so smart as I had thought." Barbara hitched a little closer to the window and with her back to the light read from the journal the following entry:

"'To My Heirs: I am fleeing with my family, to the fort. The future looks dark. Should I not return, others of my family one day will come here and take possession, provided the savages do not destroy the old place, which is not probable, as the spirit of a long dead Indian chief is said to make his home here.'"

"I knew all the time there were ghosts here," interrupted Mollie.

"Wearing false faces," added Grace under her breath.

"There are further directions. 'Search and you shall find. I cannot be more explicit save to say that what is here is well worth years of endeavor,'" Barbara read on. "'I have a feeling that I shall see the old place no more. Remember, that to every people its own dead are sacred and be governed accordingly.'"

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?"

"No, no!" exclaimed Mollie. "She was reading that old journal when we went down. We left her sitting right there. Don't you remember, you asked us to call Barbara downstairs? You wanted to see the diary of old Mr. Presby, and Ruth went upstairs to call her."

"Yes, yes. Ruth, how do you know that Barbara was here when you called to her?"

"Because she answered me," replied Ruth.

"What next? Did her voice sound as if she were here in the attic?"

"Yes. I know she was here."

"Was that when you cried out?"

"No. That awful crash came a few seconds after she had answered me. I ran up here as fast as my feet would carry me. At first the dust was so thick I was unable to make out anything clearly. I called to Bab but she did not answer me. I then ran about the room in search of her, thinking that she had fallen and hurt herself. But she wasn't here," wailed Ruth. "Oh, what shall I do?"

"Calm yourself. That is the first thing to be done. There is something mysterious about this. I wish Bob Stevens were here."

"I sent Tom for him. Did you see Mr. Stevens, Tom?"

"No. I sent word by one of the hired hands," admitted Tom sheepishly. "I – I wanted to do some work in the cellar."