The Girls of Carnegie Central High (Hilary Story )

9

It was a fact that Hester had very little in common with the rest of her teammates, save Lily. She did not put herself forward, and as none of them had been her close friends before she was put off the team, she still kept her distance now that she was back in harness again.

Hester was learning what really paid in life—especially in the life of school and athletics. A good temper, a tongue without a barb to it, and thoughtfulness for the comfort of others. Those attributes won out among the girls of Carnegie Central High—as they are bound to win out in every walk-in life.

And Hester Grimes had begun to conduct herself accordingly. for a certain Friday afternoon, Hester asked her parents to bring her a car, and as she was taking her training on that day and she telephoned for the man at the garage to bring it up. Nobody ever crossed Hester, if he could help it, and when she said to the man that she wanted to learn to run the car he supposed that her father was willing.

Centerport Board had established a rule that no person under sixteen should be given a license or be allowed to run a motor car. At any rate, he did not expect to be requested to let her run the car without his guidance.

But this is exactly what Hester demanded when they were out of town. It was a warm, smoky fall day. There were brush fires somewhere over the ridge to the south or else some spark from a railroad locomotive had set the leaves in the ditches afire. It had been drying for a week and the woods were like tinder.

They had run far out the road past the entrance, and there Hester demanded to manage the car alone, while the man sat in the back.

"You make me nervous!" she exclaimed. "I'll never learn anything with you nudging my elbow all the time. There! get along with you."

She really was a very capable girl, and she was not unfamiliar with motor cars, but the chauffeur doubted.

"I don't believe I can do it, Miss," he said. "I'll sit here——"

Suddenly the car stopped. The engine was still running, but the car did not move.

"Now what's the matter?" snapped Hester. "Hop out and see, Joseph."

The man did so and immediately she turned the switch again and the machine darted ahead leaving the chauffeur in the middle of the road.

"I'll be back after a little!" she called to him, coolly, over her shoulder, and the next moment rounded a turn safely and shut the amazed and angry chauffeur out of view.

The car purred along so easily and it was such a delight to manage the wheel without the interference of the driver that Hester did not note the distance she traveled. Nor was she at first aware of the speed. Then she suddenly realized that she had shifted the gear to the highest speed forward and that a picket fence she passed was merely a blur along the roadside.

But this was a road on which there were few houses, and most of them were back in the fields, in the middle of the farms that bordered the pike.

"This will never do," thought Hester, and she began to manipulate the levers and finally brought them to a stop. The roadway was narrow and she would have to back to turn. But this was one of the very things she desired to learn how to do, and that officious Joseph was always fussing when he was beside her.

"How many miles have I come, I wonder?" she asked herself, looking about.

She was on a ridge of land overlooking a narrow valley. At the end of the valley, the road seemed to dip from the ridge, and it disappeared in a thick haze of blue smoke.

"The fire must be over that way," she thought. "Shall I run that far and see what it means? The wind is not blowing toward me."

She started the car once more. The car rolled on, but she noticed that it wasn't working regularly.

"Hullo! Is it going to kick up rusty now and here?" muttered Hester, and she stopped. Having learned that much, she looked inside, then she tried a dozen times to start the car, without success. Suddenly she stood up with a jerk. In the distance, she heard a growing roar—the oncoming rush of a powerful car.

Fortunately, she had stopped on the side of the road. There was room for another car to pass. And out of the blue smoke ahead it appeared with startling suddenness, hurled like a missile from a gun directly up the road toward her.

The big car was driven by Chet Belding, with Launcelot Dora beside him. Jonna and Julia, Jess, Emily, filled the tonneau comfortably. Hester hoped that the Belding car would wheel right by and that her school fellows would not notice her. But Chet saw the car stalled, and Emilly's quick eye detected the lone girl standing with her back to them, looking off across the valley.

"What's the matter with that girl and her car?" demanded Lance, as Chet slowed down.

"It's Hester. Mr. Grimes has bought a car, at last, I understand," said Dora, leaning over the back of the seat and speaking to the boys. "Is she in trouble, do you think?"

"I'll bet she is!" exclaimed Lance.

"And out on this road alone. Where's the driver?" said Chet.

"And if the wind should change!" cried Jonna.

bringing his car to a full stop right beside the stalled auto.

"Hullo!" he sang out. "Can we help you? What's the matter with your car?"

Hester saw it was useless to refuse to see them then. Besides, she did not want to be stalled there for hours.

"That's what I've been trying to find out," she said, pointedly speaking to the boy, not to the girls.

She was almost on the point of driving Julia who volunteered away from the car, rather than having her enemy—help her out of her trouble. But the night was coming on and she did not want to stand there much longer if the car could be started.

"You're getting your gloves all messy, Laura!" called Jess from the other car.

"Hush!" commanded Chet, grinning, and holding up his hand. "Do not disturb the priestess of the automobile at her devotions. There will be something 'bidding in a minute—now watch."

Hester scrambled into her seat and tried the starter. The engine began to buzz like a sawmill.

"Hold on!" said Chet. "This isn't any way to go."

"Why not?" she snapped at him, for the situation was getting on her nerves now.

"The wind is likely to change. If it veers around it will drive the fire directly up this road," said Chet.

"What's burning?" demanded the girl, sharply.

"The whole forest back yonder through the cut. We came through a big cloud of smoke."

"If you got through, I guess I can," Hester said, ungratefully, and the next moment started her car.

But suddenly she became aware that the smoke was thick here. This deep cut was filled with it. And the fumes were not only choking; there was heat with the smoke.

A shift of wind drove a thick cloud out of the forest and she had to shut her eyes. This was dangerous work. She knew better than to try to run the car at high speed when she could not see twenty feet beyond it.

When she reduced speed, she was cognizant of a roaring sound from the forest. For a moment she thought a big wind was coming.

Then she knew better. It was the fire. Not far away the flames were devouring the forest hungrily—and the wind was behind the flames!

There must have already been a change in theair-current, as Chet had prophesied. The forest fire was driving right intothis narrow cut between the hills. To be caught here by the flames would notonly mean the finish of this brand-new car, but Hester knew that there would beno escape for her from such a situation