a gasoline fire. Get some pails of sand, girls!"

"That's right--sand!" yelled Ed, as he leaped from Cora's car, having
taken it a safe distance down the drive. He went back on the run to help
Jack and Ed. The rain was now pelting down, but unmindful of it, the girls
drew nearer the burning barn, while Cora sped toward the house.

"Sand--pails?" asked Belle.

"Yes!" cried Bess. "There are some pails over there!" and she pointed
toward a pile of gardening tools. "The watering can will be good, too.
Scoop up the sand--use your hands!"

She rushed over and picked up one of the pails, an example followed by
her sister and Eline.

"Oh, why don't those boys come out!" cried the latter. "Maybe they
are--burned!" she faltered.

"Perhaps they can't get our car started," said Bess. "Sometimes it just
won't respond!"

Quickly they filled the pails with sand, and while this is being done, and
other preparations under way to fight the fire and save the autos I will
take just a moment to tell my new readers something about the characters
in this story, and how they figured in previous books of the series.

The first volume, in which Cora Kimball and her chums were introduced, was
entitled "The Motor Girls," and in that they succeeded in unraveling a
mystery of the road, though it was not as easy as they at first thought
it might be.

Then came "The Motor Girls on a Tour; Or, Keeping a Strange Promise,"
and how strange that promise was, not even Cora realized at the time. But
in spite of difficulties it was kept and a restoration was made. In the
third book, "The Motor Girls at Lookout Beach," there came the quest for
two runaways.

That girls--even young girls--do things on impulse was made clear to Cora
and her friends when they sought after the rather foolish creatures who
ran such a risk. That only good came of it was as much due to Cora as to
anyone else.

"The Motor Girls Through New England" gave Cora and her companions a
chance to see something of life under strange circumstances. That one
of them would be captured by the gypsies never for a moment entered their
heads. But it happened, and for a time it looked as though the results
might be serious. But once again Cora triumphed.

The volume immediately preceding the present one is entitled "The Motor
Girls on Cedar Lake; Or, The Hermit of Fern Island." Who the hermit was,
and the strange secret he kept so long, and how it was finally solved
you will find set d