A few seconds later they had gathered up their belongings and jumped thankfully into the road—­out of sight of that sinister body still writhing in the grass.

It was not until they had climbed into the car and were whirling over the smooth road at a rapid rate that they began to feel like themselves again.

“I guess that was one of the narrowest escapes we ever had,” said Mollie over her shoulder with a laugh that was still a little unsteady.  “I guess we won’t go picnicking in the woods alone again for quite some time.”

“But I didn’t know there were any snakes around here,” said Grace wonderingly, and, it must be admitted, still with a little quaver in her voice.

“There aren’t many,” Betty explained, “Allen told me that poisonous snakes of any sort had been so rarely seen around these parts that people thought the stories of them were made up.  He said they always looked suspiciously at the bearers of the snake tales, shrugged their shoulders, winked, and asked each other to guess where So-and-So had been the night before.”

“Goodness,” cried Mollie.  “I suppose we’ll never dare to tell it then.  They’ll think we are—­”

“Slightly inebriated,” finished Betty drolly.

“Goodness, I don’t know what that means,” objected Mollie, “but it sounds worse than what I was going to say.  Now what’s the matter?”

This last exclamation was caused by a sudden, grinding noise within the machine and a jerking stop that jarred them all nearly out of their seats.

Mollie looked back over her shoulder with a despairing expression: 

“Well, this certainly isn’t our lucky day,” she said, with forced calm.  “First we nearly get eaten up by a snake, and then the car breaks down—­”

“But, Mollie, what’s the matter?” cried Grace impatiently.  “We can’t stay here.  Can’t you see?—­there’s a storm coming up.”

“Well I didn’t do it,” snapped Mollie.  “I do think, Grace, you can be the most unreasonable—­”

“Oh, please don’t start anything else,” cried Betty, herself a little on edge with the rather exciting day’s events.  “Let’s get out and see if we can find what’s wrong.  We certainly can’t do any good by talking about it.”

They got out, and Mollie even consented to “get under,” but all to no avail.  The machine refused to be placated and stood stubbornly still in the middle of the road while the storm clouds gathered and the first drops began to fall.

“Well,” Mollie decided at last, sitting miserably on the running board, “I guess we’ve either got to sit here all night or walk home and trust to luck the car doesn’t get stolen.”

“Also get soaked through ourselves,” Grace was adding disconsolately, when a familiar sound caught their ears.  It was the regular tramp, tramp of marching men.

“Some of the boys from the camp!” cried Mollie, springing up joyfully.  “Maybe they’ll help us.”