CHAPTER II.

Stanley’s Mission.

“I THINK I can walk,” were the first words she spoke, as they were dragged out of the water.

“I don’t think you can,” returned Stanley Downs positively. “I will carry you.”

He did so. There were half a dozen stone steps from the wooden boat landing to the top of the wall. From there, it was a trip of some five hundred feet to the veranda of the hotel, which faced the broad lake and the magnificent vista of mountain, where the verdure-clad slopes were bursting into the fresh green beauty of spring.

Stanley had recovered most of his strength by the time he was pulled from the water. Besides, he rather liked the task of carrying this dainty young woman, whose independence of spirit had manifested itself with the first glimmer of returning consciousness.

“Won’t you put me down, please?” she asked, with a touch of imperiousness.

“Couldn’t do it,” answered Stanley, as he hurried toward the veranda. “You would fall.”

“Nonsense! I’m not so weak as all that. Where is my car?”

“At the bottom of the lake, I guess.”

“And yours?”

“By its side—or perhaps underneath or on top of yours. We all went in together.”

Her eyes—deep-violet eyes they were, as Stanley Downs saw—were wide open by this time, and it was clear that her mind was working in orderly fashion, no matter how distressed she might be physically.

“I am too heavy for you to carry,” she persisted. “You are badly hurt. There is a great cut in your forehead. Put me down!”

“You don’t weigh much,” he laughed. “It steadies me to carry you. A hundred pounds or so in my arms is what I need to keep me balanced.”

“I weigh a hundred and thirty!” she burst out indignantly. “I may not be very big, but I play tennis and I swim as well as——”

“And drive a six-cylinder Fanchon,” threw in Stanley. “That keeps you in good condition. Yes, I understand that. But when a young lady is hurled out of a car into a lake, and especially when she has some little difficulty in getting clear of the wreckage, she must expect to feel a little shaken.”

“You threw that door of the car open just before we went over the wall,” she remarked with a smile. “That showed you had not lost your head. But for that I might not have got clear. I wonder you thought of it—so quickly.”

“Quickness of thought was needed at that stage of the proceedings if the thought was to do any good. Well, here we are at the veranda. I’ll carry you up the steps, and then you will be all right. Here is a lady who seems to know you.”

Stanley Downs put his burden down gently on the broad veranda and drew a large wicker chair to her. As he did so, a middle-aged, motherly sort of woman, in a light-blue morning gown, came running up and took the girl’s two hands in hers.

“Why, Miss Ranvelt! What is this? Was it you that went crashing into the lake? I heard that there had been an accident, but I never supposed——”

“Never supposed it was I, Mrs. Somers?” laughed the girl. “Why not? It was just as likely as to be anybody else. I’m always racing around in a motor car. You know that. Dad says I’ll get into a bad mess some time. It seems as if I came near it this morning.”

“Came near it?” grunted Karl, who had followed close behind Stanley. “How much closer does she want to come?”

Karl’s voice brought Stanley sharply to a recollection of something of great importance to himself that he had forgotten all about in the excitement—even after he had found himself safe, with the girl in his arms.

He waved a farewell to the young lady, who was being hurried away to the housekeeper’s own rooms, for dry clothes and general attention, and turned to Karl:

“The money?”

“It went down with the car,” replied Karl. “I had no time to get at it, and you were in the other car. It was in the door pocket in front, with the latch fastened. It ought to be there now.”

“Yes, yes!” agreed Stanley nervously. “It ought. The door pocket is not waterproof. But it will keep some of the water away, perhaps. Anyhow, it will keep it all in one place. Then there is a thick wrapping of brown paper over it. That ought to help.”

“Twenty thousand dollars, isn’t it?” asked Karl.

“Hush! No need to tell everybody,” warned Stanley. “But that’s what there is. A little more than twenty thousand.”

“Hello, Stan!” broke in a cheery voice, as a brawny brown hand seized Stanley’s. “What have you been doing to yourself? You’re soaking wet. By George! So is Karl! What in thunder is it all about?”

“Fell into the lake,” replied Stanley briefly. “Where did you come from. Clay?”

“Adirondacks. Cold as the deuce up there! Too early in the year; so I just turned my gas wagon in this direction, and I’m bound for New York. It is the only place for civilized beings in May.”

Clay Varron was a member of the Thracian Club—the athletic organization in New York to which Stanley Downs also belonged—and the two young men were good friends. Their mutual liking was based on respect, for both were clean-living, bright young fellows, who enjoyed athletic sports as earned recreation, without making them the principal business in life.

Among other reasons for Clay Varron and Stanley Downs being good comrades was that both were ardent motorists. Clay had done seventy miles an hour on the road, and Stanley Downs would have beaten that record, in the opinion of the Thracian Club, if he had not been dissuaded on the ground that more than seventy miles an hour away from a regular track would be idiocy, rather than good sportsmanship.

“Got any clothes with you?” asked Stanley.

“Plenty! I’ve engaged a room here at the hotel. Come up to it until you get one for yourself. Where’s my man? Where the deuce——Oh, here you are!” he added, as a trim-looking fellow, with “body servant” written all over him, stood at his employer’s elbow. “What’s the number of my room here at the Ridgeview, Moran?”

“Forty-three, sir. Suite—bedroom, sitting room, and bath. Baggage is there already. Clothes laid out, too.”

Clay Varron winked at Stanley Downs, and grinned pleasantly.

“I believe if I were in a shipwreck at night in the middle of the Atlantic, Moran would have my clothes laid out in regular order, so that I could be drowned properly dressed,” he said, with a chuckle. “Well, there’s nothing like doing your work right, whether you are President of the United States or a valet. Come on! We’ll get you out of those wet rags in two minutes, once you are in my room. Your chauffeur can look out for himself, I suppose?”

While Karl sought warmth and dry clothes in another part of the great, rambling hotel—finally bringing up with a chauffeur he knew—Stanley Downs went up to Clay Varron’s apartments.

Half an hour later, Stanley and Clay sat at the window of the private sitting room, which overlooked the lake from the second story, while Stanley told his story to Varron.

“There’s not much to it, Clay. You know Colonel Prentiss and some other men are managing this big automobile race for the Lawrence gold cup and a purse of twenty thousand dollars?”

“Of course I know it. Isn’t that one of the reasons I’m hustling back to New York? I want to hear what they think of the race at the Thracian—first-hand. It’s one week from to-day, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“And tickets are being taken up very fast, I’m told. I want to get parking space for two machines. Where’s the best place to look for the tickets? I’m told the new speedway will be a wonder. One man told me that there will be accommodation for nearly a hundred thousand people to see the races.”

“Pretty nearly that,” admitted Stanley. “You can get tickets in New York. I’ll manage that for you.”

“Why? Are you interested?” asked Clay Varron, rather surprised.

“Only as an official of the bank of Burwin & Son, in New York City. My uncle, Richard Burwin, is the sole owner of the bank, as I think you know.”

Varron nodded, and waved a hand for Stanley Downs to continue.

“Because he is the sole owner, he insists on doing things in his own way. Colonel Prentiss has been selling many tickets in Buffalo, and he found himself with more cash than he wanted to take care of. He is like my uncle in the way of having notions, and he will not do business with any bank except Burwin & Son. That is why he would not deposit any of his cash in banks at Buffalo or elsewhere, as he might have done.”

“I see. Drive ahead, Stan! Get down to cases!”

“My uncle sent me to Buffalo to get twenty thousand dollars that Colonel Prentiss wanted to deposit with us. I was not allowed to use the railroads—I didn’t want to, for that matter—but was to go in my own car, with Karl, who is my uncle’s own chauffeur, to drive when I got tired, and to help me guard the money.”

“Swell idea!” observed Clay Varron. “But I never knew the day when Stanley Downs couldn’t take care of himself—and of anything he was told to keep safely.”

Stanley got up from his chair and strode up and down the room. In a suit of light clothes belonging to Clay Varron, which fitted him almost as well as if they had been made for him, Stanley was a fine-looking specimen of the American man in his twenties.

His erect carriage, firm jaw, quick eye, and alert bearing were all those of the young man who “does things.” Even the troubled expression that drew his brows together and made him bite his lip impatiently, only seemed to accentuate the firmness of his character.

“Now I am in trouble, Varron,” he said, after a short silence. “When my car took a header into the lake, out there——”

“Great Scott! Was that what it did?” interrupted Clay excitedly.

“Yes. But that’s nothing in itself,” declared Stanley hurriedly, waving aside further ejaculations. “What troubles me is that twenty thousand dollars in bills, which were tied up in a package and placed in one of the door pockets of the car, went down with it.”

“Good heavens!”

“I dare say the money is still in the door pocket,” continued Stanley. “But what use is that, when the car is at the bottom of the lake? It is between fifty and sixty feet deep, right off the edge of the promenade in front of this hotel.”

“So I’ve heard. But that isn’t deep enough to lose your car for you. I see they are working at it now. Look!”

Clay Varron pointed out of the window, and they saw that twenty or thirty men were manipulating ropes that dropped into the water. They were pulling at them with a big motor truck as well as several teams of horses. Evidently the crowd had something attached to the ropes under water, which was giving the motor truck and horses all they could do to drag it out.

“That’s good!” exclaimed Stanley. “I didn’t think they would get at it so soon. Ah! I see! Karl is out there directing things. That young fellow is a wonder, Clay. Let’s go out!”

It was just as Clay Varron and Stanley Downs reached the veranda that the big Archimedes motor car was drawn to the surface of the lake and thence to the boat landing, which was almost level with the top of the water.

Stanley rushed down the steps and laid his hand on the door pocket. It was in full view as the car lay on its side.

The next moment he gave vent to a groan of dismay.

The door pocket was empty!