"Five miles from this turn. See, there it is on the signpost," and he flashed his lamp on the board that marked the fork in the road. "Then we had better put on speed and make that," declared Jack, "and if we do not find them there, we will have to turn back, that's all." "Didn't Cora have any idea you were going to follow?" asked Walter, as he got back in his car and then shot ahead close to the already moving _Get There_. "Not the least," replied Jack. "That comes of our foolish way of doing school-boy tricks. It seems to me the joke is turned on us this time." "Hope it is," declared Walter warmly. "I, for one, am now quite willing to go in the kindergarten, if that's all we have to do to make amends." "I can't see where we missed them," almost shouted Jack, for the noise of the thunder and rain added to the distance of sound between the cars. "Right at the spot where you told me to slow up," answered Walter. "I heard them then, but not after that." Each driver now put on all possible speed. It was a perilous ride. The mud splashed up in the very faces of the young men, the lights that flashed on the road were misleading, because of the almost continuous flashes of lightning, and the danger of "skidding" increased with every mile of the race. "Who were in the hired car?" called Walter. "Mrs. Robinson and her guest from the West, and the driver. I wish now I had gone over and fixed it, so that they had the right man at the wheel," yelled Jack. "I don't know a thing about this fellow." "What's his name?" asked Ed. "Bindle or something like that," was Jack's answer. Ed gave Walter a tug at the sleeve. "Don't say anything to Jack," he said, quietly, "but that's the very fellow who drove the Wakleys when they went over into the ditch." The shrill whistle of a train startled them. "Any other danger likely to crop up?" asked Jack. "This will surely give the girls all the experience they want, I'm afraid!" But a few more miles and they must reach the inn. If only they would find the party there safe and sound! None of the boys was what might be called nervous, but when it came to possible danger for the motor girls--Jack's sister, his friends and his chum's friends--somehow a fear seized each of the three young men; a fear to which they had thought themselves almost immune. "There's the lights from the Wayside," announced Jack, a little later, and then they turned their cars into the broad, private roadway. Jack was first to reach the hotel office, but Ed and Walter were almost at his heels. "Has a party of automobile folks come in here since eight o'clock?" he asked of the man at the desk. "Yes," replied the clerk, turning over one page of the big book. The boys' hearts gave a sort of jerk--it must be their girls, of course. "Have they registered?" went on Jack. "Were there three cars, and a number of girls?" The man looked down the list of names. "Here they are," he said, indicating some fresh writing on the page.