m!" cried Ruth, on the other side of the excited youth, "don't keep us
on tenter-hooks. Surely nothing has happened to Jane Ann?"

"I don't know! They won't tell us much about it at the station," exclaimed
the boy.

"There hasn't been a wreck?" demanded Ruth.

"Yes. At Applegate Crossing. And it is the train from the west that is in
trouble with a freight. A rear-end collision, I understand."

"Suppose something has happened to the poor girl!" wailed Helen.

"We must go and see," declared Ruth, quick to decide in an emergency. "You
must drive us, Tom."

"That's what I came back for," replied Tom Cameron, mopping his brow. "I
couldn't get anything out of Mercy's father----"

"Of course not," Helen said, briskly, as Ruth ran to the house. "The
railroad employes are forbidden to talk when there is an accident. Mr.
Curtis might lose his job as station agent at Cheslow if he answered all
queries."

Ruth came flying back from the house. She had merely called into the
kitchen to Aunt Alvirah that they were off--and their destination. While
Tom sprang in and manipulated the self-starter, his sister and the girl of
the Red Mill took their seats in the tonneau.

By the time old Aunt Alvirah had hobbled to the porch, the automobile was
being turned, and backed, and then it was off, up the river road. Uncle
Jabez, in his dusty garments, appeared for a moment at the door of the
mill as they flashed past in the big motor car. Evidently he was amazed to
see the three--the girls hatless--starting off at such a pace in the
Camerons' car.

Tom threw in the clutch at high speed and the car bounded over the road,
gradually increasing its pace until the hum of the engine almost drowned
out all speech. The girls asked no questions. They knew that, by following
the river road along the placid Lumano for some distance, they could take
a fork toward the railway and reach Applegate Crossing much quicker than
by going through Cheslow.

Once Tom flung back a word or two over his shoulder. No relief