CHAPTER XIII
OUTWITTING A CRANK
"Old grouch," cried Mollie, shaking a vindictive little fist after thedeparting farmer. "If it hadn't been that you would have killed yourselftoo, Betty, I almost wish you had hit him."
"Well, I don't," said Grace ruefully. "Nobody ever thinks of poor me."
"I guess we had better be a little more careful in the future," saidMrs. Ford, a worried line between her brows. "Better to be a littlelonger reaching Bluff Point than to endanger our lives and perhaps thelives of others."
"It almost looks as if we shouldn't have any choice," said Mollie, andthey looked at her in surprise.
"Well, we can't hope to pass that wagon," she explained, indicating thevehicle that was now some hundred feet in front and was waddling alongat a snail's pace. "There isn't room, with the ditch on one side and thedrop on the other."
"It will be easy enough if he moves to one side of the road," suggestedAmy.
"He'll move over if we toot at him," added Grace.
But Mollie shook her head doubtfully.
"I'm not so sure," she said. "It would be just like him to try to geteven with us by blocking the road."
"Get even with us?" repeated Betty indignantly. "I might just as wellsay I want to get even with him for being in the road when I wanted topass. How ridiculous."
"Of course it's ridiculous. That's probably the reason he would think ofit," insisted Mollie. "I know these farmers," she added, nodding darkly.
They laughed at her, and Betty cried gayly: "Well, we won't get anywhereby standing here in the road. I move we follow the old fellow and seewhat he's up to. And if he gets too ridiculous," she added, as sheclimbed back into the car, "I know how I'll fix him."
"How?" they asked.
"I'll bump him," she responded ferociously, and amid more fun andlaughter they climbed back into the cars and started on again.
"You know, even his back looks stubborn," remarked Grace, when, comingclose to the wagon and tooting the horn vigorously, the driver refusedto budge from the middle of the road. "I guess perhaps you will have tocarry out your threat, Betty."
"Well, I declare if I won't," exclaimed the Little Captain, her cheeksflushing and her eyes blazing at the stubborn insolence of the man. "Itwould give me great pleasure to bump him clear down the side of themountain."
"It's getting late, too," worried Grace. "Can't you do something,Betty?"
"Will you please suggest something?" cried Betty, exasperated. "There'snothing in the rules for driving a machine that covers this difficulty.I don't know what to do, unless-- Did you bring the pistol?"
Grace started.
"Goodness! you're not going to kill him are you?"
"Not unless I have to," replied Betty, and at her expression, Gracelaughed weakly.
"Yes, I brought the pistol," she said. "But it's down in the bottom ofthe bag that is underneath all the other bags in the tonneau of Mollie'scar."
Betty groaned.
"And it isn't even loaded," added Grace, as an afterthought. "Mothersaid it made her feel safer to have it along since there aren't going tobe any men with us, but she wouldn't have it loaded."
"What good is it then?" queried Betty.
"Just to scare people with."
"Well, that's what I want to do to that--man," cried Betty, trying tothink of something bad enough to call the cranky farmer, who still urgedhis team along squarely in the middle of the road and refused to give aninch. "Only I'd like to scare him to death. My conscience wouldn't evenhurt."
"It would be murder just the same," Grace suggested, with a littlehysterical laugh, "whether you shot him or scared him to death."
Betty was silent for a minute or two, crawling along behind the wagonwhile her blood boiled and her anger surged. For Betty came from a raceof fighting ancestors who were not in the habit of submitting toindignities.
"Grace, I've got to do something!" she burst out at last, gripping thewheel so tightly her knuckles showed white. "It isn't so much thevaluable time we're losing, but it's an absolute necessity to show thatfellow where he--"
"'Where he gets off,'" Grace finished slangily. "I know dear, but how?"
Betty shook her head helplessly and just glared.
Then suddenly Grace uttered a little cry and sat up straight in herseat.
"I have it!" she cried. "I know what we can do."
"Tell me," demanded Betty.
"Why, I know this road pretty well," Grace explained, speaking quickly."We're not much more than ten miles from Bluff Point."
"Yes, yes," cried Betty impatiently.
"Well, there is a short detour road that juts off from the main roadjust a little further on, and after running parallel to the road forhalf a mile or so, crosses it again."
"Yes," cried Betty again, beginning to understand the plot.
"So we'll take the detour," Grace finished triumphantly, "and come out,in front of the farmer."
"And then--" said Betty with a chuckle and a gleam in her eye.
"The rest will be up to us," finished Grace. "Shall we know what to dothen?"
"I'll say we shall," chortled Betty, adding with a glance over hershoulder at Mollie's car that was creeping along some twenty feet behindthem: "Of course the next thing will be to tell Mollie. Will you runback Grace?"
For once Grace did not object, and without waiting for Betty to stop thecar, and indeed it was hardly necessary at the rate they were going,jumped out and ran back, waving an excited hand at Mollie.
Betty heard a whoop of delight from the rear, and in a minute Grace wasback in her place.
"How far is it from here?" asked Betty, scanning the road ahead eagerly."I hope," she added, as a horrid fear assailed her, "that he doesn'tturn off on to the other road, too."
"Heavens, I hope not! Oh, there it is!" she cried a moment later, as aturn in the winding road brought the crossroads to view. "Now, if heonly doesn't turn down it!"
Eagerly they watched and drew a sigh of relief as the driver joggedsteadily on down the main road.
"Now's our chance," exulted Betty, as she changed gears with achallenging roar and slipped off merrily down the detour road.
Sullenly the driver watched them go and then with a shrug of hisshoulders, turned once more to his team.
Gayly the two cars sped along the road, bearing four Outdoor Girls bentupon revenge. The going was rough and bumpy, far worse than the mainroad, but the girls never noticed it.
"That was one time Grace had a good idea," Mollie was exulting as theyflew along. "I never thought she was particularly brilliant before, butI have changed my mind." Then catching Mrs. Ford's eye, she added with alittle laugh: "You see that's the way Grace and I talk about each other.Only," plaintively, "she says much worse things about me!"
"It will be fun," cried Amy, her eyes shining with anticipation, "to getin front of him and give that old crank a taste of his own medicine."
"He certainly deserves it," agreed Mrs. Ford, for she was as indignantas the girls at the man's insolence. "Didn't Grace say something aboutpretending we were stalled?"
"She did," cried Mollie gleefully. "And as luck, I mean bad luck, willhave it, the mean old engine will choose the very center of the road todo it's stalling in. Bless it's little old heart," and even Mrs. Fordchuckled with her.
As Grace had said, the detour was not over half a mile long, and theysoon came out on the main road again. Then they backed the cars severalhundred feet down the road so as to effectually block all passage.
Betty tooted gleefully to Mollie, and Mollie tooted gleefully backagain. Then they jumped from the machines and met in the middle of theroad for a consultation.
"He will be coming in sight any minute now," Betty explained hurriedly,"so we must decide on some definite plan of action."
"That's easy," said Mollie. "One of us will get down underneath themachine and pretend to be tinkering--"
"Goodness, that lets me out," said Grace in dismay. "I wouldn't get downin
the dirt for fifty idiotic wagon drivers."
"Well, nobody's asking you to," cried Mollie impatiently. "I fullyintend to put on my overalls and do it myself."
"Better hurry up," cried Amy, who had been glancing uneasily down theroad. "He may come along any minute now and we don't want him to catchus here."
So amid much hilarity and giggling Mollie got into the begrimed overallsand proceeded to wriggle her small self beneath the car.
"I hope he hurries," she cried in a muffled voice. "It isn't exactlywhat you might call comfortable down here. Betty, get off my foot," asGrace wickedly stepped on her toes.
"Just hear her," cried Betty plaintively. "Everything just naturallygets blamed on me."
"Well, if you didn't, who did?" queried Mollie fiercely. "Tell me hername--"
"Betty, Betty, don't give me away," pleaded Grace, at which the girlslaughed while a satisfied chuckle came from under the car.
"I knew I'd find the guilty one," Mollie was beginning when Betty cuther short with a warning cry.
"He's coming," she said, adding, as she vainly tried to straighten thecorners of her mischievous mouth: "And please remember, girls, this is avery solemn occasion!"