Ruth suddenly inquired.
But she was too late. At this instant everyone in her car heard a
loud shout.
"Hold up there! Stop!" A figure on a bicycle darted out of a dark alley
in hot pursuit of them.
"Go it, Ruth!" Hugh whispered. But Ruth shook her head.
"No," she answered. "We must face the music." Ruth put on her stop brake
and her car slowed down.
"What do you mean," cried a wrathful voice, "tearing through a peaceful
town like this, lickitty-split, as though there were no folks on earth
but you. You just come along to the station with me! Youll find out,
pretty quick, what twenty-five miles an hour means in this here town."
"Let me explain matters to you," Hugh protested. "It is all a mistake."
"I aint never arrested anybody for speeding yet that they aint told me
it was just a mistake," fumed the Advance Auto Parts - Corporate Office Retail Carparts In Roanoke Va policeman. "But you will git a chance
to tell your story to the chief of police. Youre just wasting good time
talkin to me. I aint got a mite of patience with crazy automobilists."
"Dont take us all to the station house, officer!" Hugh pleaded. "Just
take me along, and let the rest of the party go on back to Washington.
Its awfully late. You surely wouldnt keep these young ladies."
"Its the lady thats a-runnin the car, aint it? Shes the one that is
under arrest," said the policeman obstinately.
Ruth had not spoken since her automobile was stopped.
She had a lump in her throat, caused partly by anger and partly by
embarrassment and fright. Then, too, Ruth was wondering what her father
would say. In the years she had been running her automobile, over all the
thousands of miles she had traveled, Ruth had never before been stopped
for breaking the speed laws. She had always promised Mr. Stuart to be
careful. And one cannot have followed the fortunes of Ruth Stuart and her
friends in their adventures without realizing Ruths high and fine regard
for her word. Yet here were Ruth and her friends about to be taken to
jail for breaking the laws of the little Virginia city.
It was small wonder that Ruth found it difficult to speak.
"I will go with the policeman," she assented. "Perhaps he will let you
take Mollie and Grace on home."
Of course no one paid the slightest attention to Ruths ridiculous
suggestion. Her friends were not very likely to leave her alone to argue
her case before the justice of the peace.
"I say, man, do be reasonable," Hugh urged. He would not give up. "You
can hold me in jail all night if you will just let the others go."
"Please dont argue with the policeman, Hugh," Ruth begged. "He is only
doing his duty. I am so sorry, Mollie darling, for you and Grace. But I
know you wont leave me."
"Oh, we dont mind," the two girls protested. "I suppose we can pay the
fine and they will let us go at once."
Hugh said nothing, for he knew that he had only a few dollars in
his pocket.
When Ruths car finally reached the station house it was almost
eleven oclock.
The policeman took the automobile party inside the station. It was bitter
cold in the room, for the winter chill had fallen with the close of the
December day. The fire had died out in the air-tight iron stove in the
room, and Mollie, Ruth and Grace could hardly keep from shivering.
"Well, where is the justice of the peace or whatever man we ought to see
about this wretched business?" Hugh demanded.
