reason why. This is the road to Bryan, isn't it?" she asked, with her
hand on the starting-lever.

"No," said the man. "This here road goes through Napoleon and Defiance.
It gets to Ft. Wayne all right, but it doesn't go through Bryan."

Nyoda stopped in surprise. "The southern route?" she said, wonderingly.
"Why, we decided on the northern. Whatever could have made Gladys
change her mind without letting us know? Are you sure it was a brown
car with four girls dressed just like us?"

The man was positive. It was the suits and the veils all alike that had
caught his eye in the first place. He didn't generally remember much
about the cars that went past. There were too many of them. But these
girls looked so fine in their tan suits that he just had to look twice
at them. They were laughing fit to kill and all waved their
handkerchiefs at him as they passed.

We looked at each other in astonishment. It was undoubtedly the Striped
Beetle that was going along the southern route and we couldn't
understand it.

"Do you suppose," I said, "that Gladys could have misunderstood when
you were playing 'John Kempo' and thought it was the southern route
that won?"

"She must have," said Nyoda. "It's not impossible. We were all laughing
and talking so much nonsense at the time that it was hard to think
straight. But it doesn't make any difference," she added, "this route
is as good as the northern, and we are right behind them and I mean to