CHAPTER II
A ROAD MYSTERY
Like a great many other beautiful streets, there was apoverty-stricken section, if sparsely inhabited, just behind BonwitBoulevard. A group of shacks and squatters' huts down in a grassyhollow, with a little brook flowing through it to the lake, and woodsbeyond. It would not have been an unsightly spot if the marks of thehabitation of poor and careless folk had been wiped away.
But at the moment Jessie Norwood and her chum, Amy Drew, darted aroundfrom the broad boulevard into the narrow lane that led down to thispoor hamlet, neither of the girls remembered "Dogtown," as the groupof huts was locally called. The real estate men who exploited Roselawnand Bonwit Boulevard as the most aristocratic suburban section of NewMelford, never spoke of Dogtown.
"What do you suppose is the matter, Jess?" panted Amy.
"It's a girl in trouble! Look at that!"
The chums did not have to go even as far as the brow of the hilloverlooking the group of houses before mentioned. The scene of theaction of this drama was not a hundred yards off the boulevard.
A big touring car stood in the narrow lane, headed toward the broadhighway from which Jessie and Amy had come. It was a fine car, and theengine was running. A very unpleasant looking, narrow-shouldered womansat behind the steering wheel, but was twisted around in her seat sothat she could look behind her.
In the lane was another woman. Both were expensively dressed, thoughnot tastefully; and this second woman was as billowy and as generouslyproportioned as the one behind the wheel was lean. She was red-faced,too, and panted from her exertions.
Those exertions, it was evident at once to Jessie and Amy, wereconnected with the capturing and the subsequent restraining of a veryactive and athletic girl of about the age of the chums. She was quiteas red-faced as the fleshy woman, and she was struggling with all hermight to get away, while now and then she emitted a shout for helpthat would have brought a crowd in almost no time in any place moreclosely built up.
"Oh! What is the matter?" repeated Amy.
"Bring her along, Martha!" exclaimed the woman already in themotor-car. "Here come a couple of rubber-necks."
This expression, to Jessie's mind, marked the driver of theautomobile for exactly what she was. Nor did the face of the fat womanimpress the girl as being any more refined.
As for the girl struggling with the second woman--the one called"Martha"--she was not very well dressed. But she looked neat andclean, and she certainly was determined not to enter the automobile ifshe could help it. Jessie doubted, although she had at first thoughtit possible, if either of these women were related to the girl theyseemed so determined to capture.
"What are they--road pirates? Kidnapers?" demanded Amy. "What?"
The two chums stopped by the machine. They really did not know what todo. Should they help the screaming girl? Or should they aid the fleshywoman? It might be that the girl had run away from perfectly goodguardians. Only, to Jessie's mind, there was something of therefinement that pertained to the girl lacking in the appearance ofthese two women. She was not favorably impressed by them.
"What is the matter with the girl?" she asked the woman in the car.
Although she said it politely, the woman flashed her a scowling glanceand said:
"Mind your own business!"
"My!" gasped Amy at this, her eyes opening very wide.
Jessie was not at all reassured. She turned to the fleshy woman, andrepeated her question:
"What is the matter with the girl?"
"She's crazy, that's what she is!" cried the woman. "She doesn't knowwhat is good for her."
"I'll learn her!" rasped out the driver of the car.
"Don't!" shouted the girl. "Don't let them take me back there----"
Just then the fleshy woman got behind her. She clutched the girl'sshoulders and drove her harshly toward the car with her whole weightbehind the writhing girl. The other woman jumped out of the car,seized the girl by one arm, and together the women fairly threw theircaptive into the tonneau of the car, where she fell on her hands andknees.
"There, spiteful!" gasped the lean woman. "I'll show you!"
She hopped back behind the steering wheel. The fleshy woman climbedinto the tonneau and held the still shrieking girl. The car startedwith a dash, the door of the tonneau flapping.
"Oh! This isn't right!" gasped Jessie.
"They are running away with her, Jess," murmured Amy. "Isn't itexciting?"
"It's mean!" declared her chum with conviction. "How dare they?"
"Why, to look at her, I think that skinny woman would dare anything,"remarked Amy. "And--haven't--you seen her before?"
"Never! She doesn't live around here. And that car is strange."
The car had turned into the boulevard and headed out of town. When thegirls walked back to the broad highway it was out of sight. It wasbeing driven with small regard for the speed laws.
"I guess you are right," reflected Amy. "I never saw that car before.It is a French car. But the woman's face----"
"There was enough of that to remember," declared Jessie, quitespitefully.
"I didn't mean the fat woman's face," giggled Amy. "I mean that theother woman looked familiar. Maybe I have seen her picturesomewhere."
"If my face was like hers I'd never have it photographed," snappedJessie.
"How vinegarish," said Amy. "Well, it was funny."
"You do find humor in the strangest things," returned her chum. "Iguess that poor girl didn't think it was funny."
"Of course, they had some right to her," Amy declared.
"How do you know they did? They did not act so," returned the morethoughtful Jessie. "If they had really the right to make the poor girlgo with them, they would not have acted in such haste nor answered methe way they did."
"Well, of course, it wasn't any of our business either to askquestions or to interfere," Amy declared.
"I don't know about that, Amy," rejoined her chum. "I wish yourbrother had been here, or somebody."
"Darry!" scoffed Amy.
"Or maybe Burd Alling," and Jessie's eyes twinkled.
"Well," considered Amy demurely, "I suppose the boys might have knownbetter what to do."
"Oh," said Jessie, promptly, "I knew what to do, all right; only Icouldn't do it."
"What is that?"
"Stopped the women and made them explain before we allowed them totake the girl away. And I wonder where she was going. When and wheredid she run away from the women? Did you hear her beg us not to letthem take her back--back----"
"Back where?"
"That is it, exactly," sighed Jessie, as the two walked on towardtown. "She did not tell us where."
"Some institution, maybe. An orphan asylum," suggested Amy.
"Did you think she looked like an orphan?"
"How does an orphan look?" giggled Amy. "I don't know any except the_Molly Mickford_ kind in the movies, and they are always too appealingfor words!"
"Somehow, she didn't look like that," admitted Jessie.
"She fought hard. I believe I would have scratched that fat woman'sface myself, if I'd been her. Anyway, she wasn't in any uniform. Don'tthey always put orphans in blue denim?"
"Not always. And that girl would have looked awful in blue. She wastoo dark. She wasn't very well dressed, but her clothes and theircolors were tasteful."
"Aren't you the observing thing," agreed Amy. "She was dressed nicely.And those women were never guards from an institution."
"Oh, no!"
"It was a private kidnaping party, I guess," said Amy.
"And we let it go on right under our noses and did not stop it,"sighed Jessie Norwood. "I'm going to tell my father about it."
Amy grinned elfishly. "He will tell you that you had a right, underthe law, to stop those women and make them explain."
"Ye-es. I suppose so. But a right to do a thing and the ability to doit, he will likewise tell me, are two very different things."
"Wisdom from the
young owl!" laughed Amy. "Well, I don't suppose,after all, it is any of our business, or ever will be. The poor thingis now a captive and being borne away to the dungeon-keep. Whateverthat is," she added, shrugging her shoulders.
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