"Oh, if there is going to be real distress about it," said Cora, evidently trying hard to pull herself together, "I suppose we had best start. But remember, I have warned you. I have a premonition that we will 'run up against' something before night." "Then I am not going," declared Hazel. "I won't stir one step. Cora, let the others go; you can overtake them with your fast car, and we will meet them in the morning." This brought on a veritable storm of protest and dissatisfaction. Cora left the girls on the porch, and went outside with Tillie. "Could you hear anything those men were saying?" she asked the pretty little German. "Were they discussing a patent, do you think?" "Oh, no; it was not like that," replied Tillie. "It was about--let me see. Some Haster, no, like a name--like your friend's name, Hazel Hastings. That was it, Hastings." "Did they say Hazel?" pressed Cora. "No, not that, of course," and Tillie laughed. "How should they know Hazel? It was a similar name--just Hastings." "And they unfolded blueprints? Like our campus maps, you know?" "Yes, they had blue maps; I saw them when I picked up my shattered cup.--It is all very well for Adele to blame his thumb; I blame him--he is too fat, and thinks himself very smart." Tillie pouted. Evidently her caller had not been too polite, perhaps he had mistaken her for an ordinary waitress. A distant "honk-honk" startled the girls. Cora rushed out to the road, and before the others knew what she was about she was in conversation with Ed Foster. So quickly did he run up to the Grotto in Jack's car that no one but Cora realized who he was until the machine was stopped and he was out beside her. There was a stranger with him--a business-like looking man. He did not leave the car. "There!" exclaimed Ray. "Didn't I tell you? It was this Co-Ed business that kept her. Cora can't fool me." "Hazel," said Cora, stepping up to the porch, "Ed thinks you had best not go on with us. Paul is not well--he is not very sick, though--" Hazel turned white, and Cora put her arm around her. "Now you must not be frightened. It is nothing serious, and I will go back with you," she said. "Indeed you shall not!" exclaimed Hazel, now calling up all her courage, and proving herself to be the girl she really could be in an emergency. "I shall go back with Ed, if I may." The girls glanced from one to the other. They understood this was an emergency, that Hazel had been called back to her sick brother, yet with girlish curiosity some of them, at least, showed surprise that Hazel should offer to ride back with Ed Foster. "But I am not going back," said Ed; "at least not until we--this gentleman and I--have followed the trail a little farther. You see, girls, we are out on a 'bear hunt.'" But the girls did not see--only Cora looked as if she understood. She said to Hazel: