"Then there is something in it?" Laura said quickly. "Can it be possible that Purt Sweet would do such an awful thing and not really betray himself before this?" "There you've said it, Laura!" cried Lance. "That is what I tell both Chet and Billy. If Pretty was guilty, he would be scared so that he would never dare go out again in his car." "Oh! Oh!" cried Bobby with dancing eyes. "Then my rhyme is a true bill?" "Aw, Lance would have to give it away!" growled Chet. "Boys are as clannish as they can be!" said Jess severely. "We are just as much interested as you are, Chet. What made Billy believe Pretty Sweet ran the man down?" "Oh, well," sighed Chet, "we might as well give in to you girls, I suppose." "Besides," laughed his sister, "the pies are almost done, and both you and Lance will want to sample them." "Go on. Tell 'em, Chet," said Lance. "Why, Billy had been riding that day in the Sweets' car. You know Purt is too lazy to breathe sometimes, and he wouldn't get out his chains and put 'em on. Billy knew that the chains were not on at dinner time that evening, for he passed the Sweet place and saw the car standing outside the garage with the radiator blanketed. "Well, the only thing we were sure of about the car that ran that man down--the Alaskan miner, you know--was that the rear wheels had no chains on them, and that it was a Perriton car like Purt's." "Yes, it was a Perriton," said his sister. "So we fellows hiked up there to Sweets'. Purt was out with the car. He came home in about an hour, and he was still skidding over the ice. We tried to get out of him where he had been, but he wouldn't tell. We had to almost muzzle Billy, or he would have accused him right there and then. And Billy has been savage over it ever since." "Really then," said Laura, "there is nothing sure about it." "Well, it is sure the car was a Perriton. And since then we have found out that Purt's is the only Perriton in town that isn't out of commission for the winter. You can talk as you please about it: If the police only knew what we know, sure thing Purt would be neck-deep in trouble right now!" CHAPTER XVI EMBER NIGHT The three girls of Central High and their boy friends had not come together on this stormy Saturday morning merely to feast on "pie and poetry." The ice carnival had made them so much money that Laura and her friends desired to try something else besides the play which was now in rehearsal. They wanted to "keep the ball rolling," increasing the collections for the Red Cross from day to day. Fairs and bazaars were being held; special collectors like Janet Steele were going about the city; noonday meetings were inaugurated in downtown churches and halls; a dozen new and old ways of raising money were being tried.