under the collar. The quarantine ended right then and there. Whether
Dr. Caxton came again or not we never found out, for the girls left
immediately. They sped over the road to Ft. Wayne as fast as the
Striped Beetle could carry them. They went to the Potter Hotel and
naturally discovered that we had not stayed there. I believe they had
held to the hope all the time that we had arrived after the telegram
had gone back undelivered. They stood around irresolutely until the
check man to whom we had talked spied them and told them that we had
left not half an hour before and were on our way to Chicago by way of
Ligonier. They could hardly believe their ears when they heard that
Nyoda had gone off and left them the second time. But as they were so
close behind us the only thing for them to do was to follow.

Gladys stopped at a service station and had the Striped Beetle's
carburetor adjusted, or something that sounded like that, and then
started post-haste on the road to Chicago. Pearl looked from one to the
other of the girls with fear and suspicion in her face. "Is there--is
there really such a person as you say you are taking me to see, or are
you taking me somewhere else?" she faltered.

And the girls had a hard time convincing her that Nyoda was not a myth,
although they began to wonder if she had not turned into one. Gradually
Pearl began to thaw out under their persistent cordiality and was
really not such a bad companion after all. She still furtively watched
the road behind them as if she feared pursuit, but some of the scared
rabbit look was going out of her eyes when she began to realize that
the width of a whole state lay between her and her persecutors and they
had absolutely no clue to her whereabouts. She repeatedly expressed her
amazement that a group of girls so young had the courage to travel by
themselves in an automobile, and were not frightened to death to have