will have forgotten by this time that there were eight girls who
started out on the trip instead of four. So now I am going to carry you
back to a point almost at the beginning of the story; the point where
we almost struck the old woman and where the Striped Beetle vanished
from sight. As I said before, I am going to tell the story just as if I
had been along and seen everything, without stopping to quote Gladys or
Hinpoha or Medmangi or Chapa.

You will remember that we were proceeding westward through Toledo at
the time and the Striped Beetle was in the lead. Hinpoha sat in the
front seat with Gladys, holding Mr. Bob in her lap. The street was
crowded with vehicles and Gladys was driving carefully. A wagon loaded
almost to the sky with barrels threatened to fall over on them and they
had a narrow squeeze to get through between it and the curb. Some small
boys on the sidewalk shouted at the driver of the wagon and he shouted
back; a street car trying to make headway on a track from which a sand
wagon refused to move itself raised an ear-splitting racket with its
alarm bell; the noise was so deafening that the girls put their hands
over their ears and did not take them down again until Gladys had
turned a corner into a quieter street. They had turned another corner
before they discovered that the Glow-worm was not right behind them.
Gladys merely stopped the car and waited for us to come up.

"They're probably caught in that line of wagons and trucks on T----
Street," said Gladys, when we did not come immediately. "I hope their
engine didn't stall on that corner."

The minutes passed and we did not appear.

"Run down to the corner and see what is keeping them," said Gladys to