"Huh," sang back Betty scornfully as the roadster responded eagerly to her
touch, "they will have a great deal better chance of seeing me in the lead
with your great big jumbo tottering feebly at the end of a rope."

They picked up Amy and Grace on the way and were soon flying swiftly down
the road in the direction of Professor Dempsey's tree-surrounded home.

They were in rather good spirits at first, for now that they were really
on the way to doing something, though they were not quite sure what, they
felt relieved and almost gay.

But as the distance shortened between them and their destination, a
strange depression that they could neither explain nor brush away settled
down over them.

Once, Grace, who sat beside the Little Captain in the roadster, sighed
rather dolefully and Betty looked at her out of the corner of her eye.

"Do you feel that way too, Grade?" the latter asked.

"What way?" asked Grace uncertainly. "That sigh, do you mean?"

"Yes," nodded Betty. "You sounded rather mournful and that is exactly the
way I feel. What's the matter with us, anyway? Where are our spirits?"

"I suppose we couldn't expect to feel joyful," said Grace after a little
pause. "We aren't going, so far as I can see, on a very happy errand, you
know."

"But I don't think it is that alone," said Betty, with a shake of her