road, leading the group of evidently much worried women.

"Have you folks seen anything of----"

"_Abby!_" shrieked the woman Ruth had found, and she struggled to get out
of the car.

"Well, I declare, Mary Marsden!" gasped the sunbonneted woman, who was
plainly Abby Drake. "If you ain't a sight!"

"I--I'm so scared!" quavered the unforunate victim of her own nerves, as
Ruth ran back to help her out of the touring car. "God is going to punish
me, Abby."

"I certainly hope He will," declared her friend, in rather a hard-hearted
way. "I told you, you ought to be punished for wearing that dress up there
into the berry pasture, and---- Land's sakes alive! Look at her
dress!"

Afterward, when Ruth had been thanked by Mrs. Drake and the other women,
and the cars were rolling along the highway again, the girl of the Red
Mill said to Helen Cameron:

"I guess Tom is more than half right. Altogether, the most serious topic
of conversation for all kinds and conditions of female humans is the
matter of dress--in one way or another."

"How dare you slur your own sex so?" demanded Helen.

"Well, look at this case," her chum observed. "This Mary Marsden had been
lost in the storm and killed for all they knew, yet Abby Drake's first
thought was for the woman's dress."

"Well, it was a pity about the dress," Helen remarked, proving that she
agreed with Abby Drake and the bulk of womankind--as her twin brother oft
and again acclaimed.

Ruth laughed. "And now if we could see poor dear Tommy----"

The car rounded a sharp turn in the highway. The Drake house was perhaps a
mile behind. Ahead was a long stretch of rain-drenched road, and Helen
instantly cried:

"There he is!"

The figure of Tom Cameron with the empty gasoline can in his hand could
scarcely be mistaken, although he was at least a mile in advance. Helen
began to punch the horn madly.

"He'll know that," Ruth cried. "Yes, he looks back! Won't he be
astonished?"

Tom certainly was amazed. He proceeded to sit down on the can and wait for
the cars to overtake him.

"What are you traveling on?" he shouted, when Helen stopped with the
engine running just in front of him. "Fairy gasoline?"

"Why, Tommy, you're not so smart!" laughed his sister. "It takes Ruth to
find gas stations. We were stalled right in front of one, and you did not
know it. Hop in here and take my place and I'll run back to the other car.
Ruth will tell you all about it."

"Perhaps we had