18

The man could not hear because the chains on the wheels were making a loud clanking noise.

“Help! Help!” screamed Veve, now thoroughly frightened.

The car whirled around a corner, with the girl clinging desperately to her sled.

19

CHAPTER 2 In Search of Veve

BY the time Connie reached the bend, Veve and the car were out of sight. For a minute she was so frightened she couldn’t think what to do.

Miss Gordon once had told the Brownies that whenever anything went wrong, the important thing was to remain very calm.

Connie felt anything but calm now. She was so excited she trembled all over. But she knew she had to think clearly or Veve might never be saved.

“I’ll call the police,” she thought.

At the next to last Brownie meeting, Miss Gordon had shown the girls how to dial police and fire department numbers in an emergency. Only Connie had no nickel and the nearest telephone was at the drugstore a block away.

Well, she had to do something quickly. Even if Veve were lucky enough not to be thrown from her sled, the driver was almost certain to take her far away without knowing it.

20 Dragging her sled, Connie ran all the way to the drugstore. The druggist was there, waiting on a customer who wanted a box of cough tablets.

20

“Please,” said Connie breathlessly, “will you lend me a nickel?”

The druggist looked so surprised she realized that the request must seem an odd one. So she added quickly:

“Veve was carried away on her sled by an automobile! I must call the police station.”

“The police station!” exclaimed the druggist.

He didn’t understand what Connie meant about Veve and the sled, but he could see from her worried look that something was wrong.

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