was to put on the brakes as hard as I could."

"And you did," said Grace. "I didn't know you could move so quickly, Mollie."

"You can do many things when the emergency comes," replied Mollie, as she turned out to avoid a rut in the road.

"This is better than a dozen lessons in the art of managing an auto," commented Betty. "Practical problems are what count—not theoretical ones. Does she seem all right, Grace?" and she looked around at the unconscious girl.

"Yes, and her breathing is better. I think she will soon come to."

"That's good. See, there's a house. We can take her in, and ask where the nearest doctor is," and Betty pointed ahead.

Presently the auto stopped before it, and to a motherly-looking woman who came out, Betty and the girls quickly explained what had happened.

"Of course! Bring the poor dear in!" the woman directed. "The men folks are over in the far meadow salting the cows, or I'd send one of them for Dr. Brown. He's most likely to be home too, now. He lives down the road a piece—about a mile."

"I can go for him in the car, and bring him back," said Mollie.

"That's good. Bring the poor dear in the bedroom, and we'll look after her until the doctor comes. I'll get the camphor bottle. That's good for a faint."

The girl seemed to have again sunk into a stupor, as they carried her in, and placed her on a comfortable lounge. Then the woman of the house brought out a bottle of camphor, of generous size, and it was held to the nostrils of the unconscious one.

The sufferer turned her head away from the pungent odor, and seemed to be struggling against some unseen force. Again she seemed to revive somewhat, and muttered:

"Oh, I can't! I can't! I don't want to go back to him! Anything but that! I don't like—I can't bear that life!"

Her voice trailed off into a mere whisper.

"You had better hurry for the doctor," said Betty, and Mollie hastened out to her car.

"I'll come with you," volunteered Grace, and Mollie was grateful.

"Suppose we take her into the bedroom," suggested the woman. "It's cooler there. We can manage her. I'm real strong."

With her help it was no great task to get the girl on the bed. Her garments were loosened so that she might be more comfortable, and more camphor was used, but it seemed to have no effect.

"Suppose we go out and let her be by herself; we can't do anything more," suggested the woman. "Besides, she needs all the air she can get. That's always best for fainting folks. She may come to by herself, I'll open the window and shutters," and she proceeded to do so. Then coming out, and closing the door, they left the strange girl alone, Betty and Amy taking turns telling how the affair had happened.

"Land's sakes! Fell out of a tree!" exclaimed the woman. "What in the world do you s'pose she was doin' up in it?"

"We haven't the least idea," answered Betty.

"And who is this man she says she won't go back to?"

"We have even less idea—she has repeated that several times," spoke Amy. "Oh, I do hope they find the doctor!"

"Dr. Brown is real good," was the woman's opinion. "He cured my rheumatism, and Hetty Blake—she lives over on the Melford road—she had jaundice something terrible—she was as yellow as saffron tea, and he brought her around when old Dr. Wakefield give her up. Yes, Dr. Brown is right smart."

Thus she entertained the girls with remarks on the country life around, until Betty ventured to remark:

"I wonder if we oughtn't to look in on her?" motioning to the room where they had left the girl.

"No, best let her be," said the woman—Mrs. Meckelburn, she had said her name was.

"Hark!" exclaimed Amy a little later.

"It's an auto!" said Betty, going to the window.

She saw Mollie and Grace in the car, a young man, with a professional air about him, at the steering wheel.

"That's Dr. Brown!" exclaimed Mrs. Meckelburn, "but I didn't know he could drive one of them things."

"I guess Mollie got too nervous," explained Betty.

The doctor caught up his bag and hurried toward the house, followed by Grace and Mollie.

"An accident!" he exclaimed in brisk tones, bowing to Betty and Amy, and taking in the woman in his greeting. "Where is she?"

"In my bedroom, Dr. Brown," said Mrs. Meckelburn. "I do hope there's nothing much the matter with the poor dear."

They clustered around as the physician pushed open the door. Then he turned to them with a queer look on his face.

"Must be some mistake," he said. "There is no one here."

"No one there!" cried Betty in strange tones. "Why——"

She looked over his shoulder. There in the bed was the imprint of a human form, but the girl herself had vanished!

CHAPTER IV

THE QUEER PEDDLER

For a moment after this surprising discovery had been made no one spoke. Dr. Brown looked oddly from one girl to the other, and at Mrs. Meckelburn.

"There is evidently some mystery here," he said. "I supposed there was really some one here who needed my services?" and he glanced questioningly at Mollie, who had summoned him.

"Oh, indeed there was," she said, quickly. "A girl fell out of a tree——"

"Out of a tree!" exclaimed the doctor, and for a moment it seemed as though he believed a joke had been attempted on him.

"Yes," went on Betty, taking up the story, "didn't Mollie tell you that? She really fell from a tree as our auto passed, and at first we thought we had struck her." Betty shot a glance of inquiry at Mollie.

"No, I didn't tell that part," confessed the owner of the new car. "I was so flustrated, and I guess Grace didn't say anything either."

"No," answered the willowy one.

"Well, I'm here, at all events, but there is no patient," said the doctor, with a smile.

"Oh, we'll pay you for your call!" exclaimed Betty, quickly taking out her silver mesh bag. "How much——"

"No, no!" said Dr. Brown somewhat sharply, "you misunderstand me. I never accept a fee in a simple accident case. What I meant about there being no patient was that she has evidently gone away, possibly in a delirium, and in that case we had better search for her, for she may be badly hurt, or do herself some injury. You say she was in this room?"

"Yes," answered Mrs. Meckelburn.

"And you sat here in view of the door all the while?"

"Yes," spoke Betty. "She never came out of that door, I'm sure." Amy said the same thing.

"Then the only other possible solution is that she got out of the window," went on the physician, "for there is no other door from the room. We must look outside," and he crossed the apartment to the casement. It had been raised, and the shutters were open when the unconscious girl had been left alone.

"The window is low—she could easily have dropped to the ground," said Dr. Brown. "It is not more than four feet."

He leaned out to look at the ground underneath, and uttered an exclamation.

"That is what she did!" he cried. "There are the marks of feet landing heavily—small shoes—and unless some of you young ladies have been indulging in gymnastics."

"And see!" added Betty, standing beside the