Walter took the wheel of the Whirlwind, which Cora gladly relinquished to him, and soon had the car out of the ditch and upon the highway. The Streak, of course, could not move under its own power for more than a short distance, as the water had all leaked out of the radiator, and, there being none to cool the cylinders, to operate it was to invite disaster. Jack and Bess had alighted from the Get There. Jack was very angry. "Nice way to race!" he exclaimed. "I've got a good mind to--do something to you, Sid Wilcox!" "Oh, you have, eh?" sneered Sid. "Well, I don't know but what I might like to take it out of you for your sister cutting so close across my course. I guess I'm the one to get mad." "You sneak! She did nothing of the sort!" cried Jack. "Oh, Jack! Please don't!" begged his sister. "If it was my fault, I'm ready to apologize." "Your fault!" exclaimed Walter. "It wasn't your fault at all. It was--er--well, Sid and Ida were to blame." "That's the way it looked to me," declared Cora. Ida stared at Jack's sister for a moment, and then, with an open sneer on her face, turned deliberately away. "Oh, I'm so glad we escaped, anyhow!" ejaculated Mary Downes. Her voice attracted Sid's attention. He had not noticed the little work girl before. At first he appeared to scowl, and then he smiled most pleasantly. The action was not lost upon Belle, though Cora, puzzling over Ida's manner, had not seen it. "Come on, get in, girls," called Walter from his seat in the touring car. "No use standing there in the sun." "You've got to tow me," ordered Sid in a peremptory manner. "Got to?" repeated Walter, with a curious inflection. "Hush!" whispered Cora. "Let's do it, Walter. Jack is so angry at him that I'm afraid something will happen." "Very well. Just as you say," replied Walter gallantly. Jack turned away in disgust. He was evidently trying hard to keep his temper under control. "That he and Ida should deliberately endanger the lives of several people, to say nothing of their own risk, seems past belief," Jack murmured to Walter. "I've a good mind to teach him a much-deserved lesson. We ought to leave him to walk home." "Oh, I do dislike rows!" exclaimed Cora, and she whispered in Jack's ear: "Don't bother with him, Bud. He isn't worth it." "You're right about that," was the response, and the lad looked affectionately at his sister. She had gotten over the momentary fright, and there was now a pretty flush on her face. "I'll overlook it this time, sis," went on Jack. "Perhaps he'll get his lesson later--without me having to give it to him." "Aren't some of you going to tow me?" asked Sid rather disconsolately. "I can't run my car the way it is." "Don't ask any favors of them," Cora heard Ida whisper to Sid. "We'll walk." "I will not," he answered sharply. "I'm not going to leave my car here. Will you give me a tow, Cora?" he asked. "Seeing that you made me smash--"