t what would you do if you hadn't?" asked Dorothy.

"It would be necessary to find the hole in the punctured tube and
stop it up with cement."

"And then you would have to wait hours for it to dry, I suppose?"

"No; only a few minutes. There is a preparation something like putty
which you force into the puncture, and which dries in a very few
minutes. Of course, a tire fixed in this way would never be
considered as satisfactory as a new inner tube, yet they have been
known to go many miles without the slightest trouble. In fact, you
are more apt to get a new puncture, than to have the patch give
out."

Time passed so quickly as the big machine shot along the level
highway at a rapid pace that no one realized their whereabouts until
Aunt Betty cried suddenly:

"Oh, look over there! Those must be the Northern Lights."

Her hand was extended toward a brilliant glare which lit up the sky
as the moon went behind a heavy cloud.

"The Northern Lights, and in the east!" cried Dorothy. "Oh, Aunt
Betty!"

"As I live that _is_ the east! Why, I'm all turned around. Then what
are those lights, my dear?"

"Baltimore, of course, you dear auntie."

"So soon? Why, it seems as if we have been out barely two hours."

"And we have been out but a very little more," said Jim, looking at
his watch. "It is only eleven o'clock and it was a few minutes to
nine when we left the hotel. Another half hour will put us to the
gates of Bellvieu, eh, Gerald?"

"Surely," was the response, delivered in an "I-told-you-so" tone.

Gradually they began to encounter more vehicles, the majority of
which seemed to be traveling toward the city.

"Strange those wagons are all going that way," said Aurora.

"Nothing so strange about it," said Jim. "Most of them are lumber
wagons filled with country produce, such as vegetables, eggs and
fruit. They leave the farms early in the night so as to be on hand at
the Baltimore market when it opens for business in the morning."

On they flew at a high speed, the lights ahead becoming brighter and
brighter. Soon an electric light burst before their vision off to the
right, then another, and another, until they realized that they were,
indeed, in the outskirts of Baltimore.

Gerald ran the car more slowly now, for city ordinances are very
strict, imposing a low limit on the speed of autos when within the
confines of a municipality. Gerald had never been fined for speeding
since coming into possession of a