A distant "honk-honk" startled the girls. Cora rushed out to the
road, and before the others knew what she was about she was in
conversation with Ed Foster. So quickly did he run up to the
Grotto in Jack's car that no one but Cora realized who he was
until the machine was stopped and he was out beside her. There
was a stranger with him -a business-like looking man. He did not
leave the car.

"There!" exclaimed Ray. "Didn't I tell you? It was this Co-Ed
business that kept her. Cora can't fool me."

"Hazel," said Cora, stepping up to the porch, "Ed thinks you had
best not go on with us. Paul is not well - he is not very sick,
though - "

Hazel turned white, and Cora put her arm around her. "Now you
must not be frightened. It is nothing serious, and I will go back
with you," she said.

"Indeed you shall not!" exclaimed Hazel, now calling up all her
courage, and proving herself to be the girl she really could be in
an emergency. "I shall go back with Ed, if I may."

The girls glanced from one to the other. They understood this was
an emergency, that Hazel had been called back to her sick brother,
yet with girlish curiosity some of them, at least, showed surprise
that Hazel should offer to ride back with Ed Foster.

"But I am not going back," said Ed; "at least not until we - this
gentleman and I - have followed the trail a little farther. You