ation, adding with another smile: "You see, I had to stop you some
way, so I chose the very first method I could think of."

"It certainly was effective," he answered, smiling.

Then after mutual introductions, by which the girls learned that their
new friend's name was Joe Barnes and that he had been on his way to
Deeming, a village about five miles away when Betty's red flag had
brought him to so sudden a stop, the youth went to work with a will at
the tire while the girls alternately watched him and helped by handing
him the tools he needed.

In what seemed no time at all to the girls he had finished his task and
had pulled out a handkerchief and was wiping his begrimed hands with it.

"My, you did do that in a hurry!" sighed Mollie, patting the new tire
happily. "You did in fifteen minutes what five of us couldn't do in half
an hour."

"You were probably tired," he answered, glancing at the car, which gave
unmistakable evidence of the many miles they had come that day. "Are
you, have you--" he hesitated, evidently not knowing whether his
question would be taken in good part or not. "Are you going very much
farther?"

"Only about a hundred miles," laughed Betty, then added in answer to his
startled glance: "Not to-night, though. We are just going as far as
Bensington."

"But Bensington is about fifteen miles away," he protested, adding as he
glanced up at a lowering gray cloud overhead: "And if I know anything
about weather signs, you will have to use some speed to get there before
the storm."

"The storm!" they cried simultaneously, following his glance, while
Mollie added petulantly:

"Goodness, haven't we had enough troubles for one day without getting a
drenching into the bargain?"

"But we haven't got the drenching yet," Mrs. Ford reminded her, adding,
with a cordial smile as she held out her hand to Joe Barnes: "We don't
know how to thank you Mr. Barnes, for taking all this trouble for us."

"Please don't," he begged, flashing his nice smile upon them. "I am only
too glad to have been of assistance. And now, if I might suggest--"

Another glance at the ominous cloud which had grown bigger and blacker
even in these few minutes, sent the girls scrambling unceremoniously to
their seats while Joe Barnes lifted his hat and stood waiting for them
to start. Once his eyes rested upon Betty, and there was so much
undisguised admiration in them that she flushed prettily and threw in
the clutch with a jerk