While Phil hastily telephoned Wayland Hall and sent out her emergency call for Gussie and Calista, Barbara busied herself with getting into communication with Laura Mead and Norma Buchanan of Silverton Hall. Anna Towne had been posted to watch at the window for Lillian. The latter arrived shortly after Robin had gone. She quickly took on her load of passengers and whizzed off as speedily as she had come.

Arrived at the inn with her first installment of guests, Robin found Signor Baretti a most sympathetic listener to the report of the calamity which had overtaken the off-campus girls. Mindful of the fact that the nationality of the two warring garage proprietors was the same as Baretti’s she made her report a strictly impersonal one.

“This is no way for Mariani an’ Sabani to do. Verra bad,” was the little proprietor’s wrathful criticism of his countrymen. “I know these verra well. They are the Italianos. But they are not much good. They are too craza get the money. Each steal the business of the other. To get mad at the people; that is the verra bad business. The people don’t ride, Sabani an’ Mariani get no mona.”

“It was very bad business for us,” Robin assured him with a rueful smile. “I think now that we’ll be able to bring the girls to the inn almost on time. We can’t avoid being a little late.”

“You don’t speak of that. It is the all right,” protested Baretti.

“Thank you so much, Signor Baretti. But we must not delay your Thanksgiving arrangements.” Robin made a movement as though about to depart.

“You listen one minute.” Up went one of the Italian’s hands for attention. “You don’t worry about nothin’, Miss Page. Your frien’s come pretty soon in the cars with the dorm girls. The dinner is a little late, I don’t care. These frien’s who have the cars take the dorm girls to town, to the campus, all the day when they need to go?”

“Yes, the same girls will help us if they haven’t any special engagements for the afternoon and evening. The dormitory girls are to see the basket ball game in the gym this afternoon. Then they have to go to town to get ready for a dance in the gym this evening. After the dance they must be taken back to town again. We don’t wish to disappoint them if we can help it.” A worried pucker appeared on Robin’s white forehead.

“I know what I do.” Baretti treated Robin to a brilliantly encouraging smile. She had never before seen him look so utterly genial. “You wait—you see.” He nodded at her mysteriously.

“You’ve done so much for us already,” she demurred, answering the smile with her own charming one.

“I do more,” he promised heartily. He trotted along at her side as she hurried to the door, repeatedly assuring her of his help.

Robin had sprung hastily into her car and headed it for the town of Hamilton when Lillian Wenderblatt drove up with a second load of girls.

“Hurray! Never say die!” Lillian hailed triumphantly. “We’re here, because we’re here!”

The girls in the car took up the cry and shouted it joyfully.

“You made quick time,” Robin said to Lillian with grateful warmth. “Gussie, Calista, Laura Mead and Norma Buchanan have been phoned for. Phil and Barbara are at that end of the job. Did you meet any of our rescue motorists on the way?”

“Yes; I passed Gus and Calista not far from the Arms. They were speeding along, splashing up the water like sixty. They were having a race to see which one could keep in the lead.”

“Thank goodness for such glorious news!” exclaimed Robin energetically. “Do you mind making another trip, Lillian?”

“I’d love to. I’ll dump my cargo of dorms, as our friend Guiseppe likes to call ’em, instanter. Then I’ll beat you back to town.”

“Oh, no you won’t. Good-bye. I haven’t time to say much obliged.” Robin promptly started her car and sped away through the fine misting rain into which the heavier downpour had at last merged.

“This is one way to spend Thanksgiving,” she reflected, a touch of mockery in her smile, as she sent the car ahead at the highest speed she dared employ. “I know three Silvertonites who are going to be away late for dinner at the Hall, too. But it’s our traditional obligation to see the dorms within Baretti’s hospitable gates first and consider our own turkey dinner last. Just the same I hope there’ll be lots of turkey left. I’m so hungry.” Robin sighed audibly.

She forgot her hunger when she suddenly spied Gussie and Calista coming up, a pair of highly enthusiastic, if somewhat reckless chauffeurs, each driving a car filled with dinner guests.

“You can always rely on the Bertram Taxi Company,” Gussie called at top voice. She was in the lead and radiant with the opportunity which had fallen to her to make herself useful.

Robin rewarded Gussie with a gay salute. “Seen the others?” she cried.

“Laura and Norma? Met them just as we turned out of Linden Avenue,” the reply floated back to Robin’s gratified ears.

When within a short distance of the bus stand she had the good luck to encounter Laura and Norma. They had enthusiastically hailed the detail as a fine opportunity to prove their mettle as Travelers. They had also pressed Adeline Raymond, another of the new Travelers, into service with her car. Twenty-six passengers made up the jubilant aggregation of the three cars which the trio of Travelers had brought to the emergency.

Robin shouted and waved her encouragement of the overflowing carloads of girls as the machines shot past her own. She did not attempt to stop the three willing drivers who had responded so promptly to the call. She had not more than reached the drug store and sprung from her car when Lillian drove up, laughingly sounding her own praises as a high-speed motorist.

“We have met the obstacle and surmounted it,” Phil emphasized her joyful boast with a flourish of the arm. She and Barbara had rushed out of the drug store at sight of the returned pair of P. G.’s. “Only sixteen more girls to go to the inn. Speed up, and you can get them there by a little after one. Then you can come back for us. I’ve ’phoned Silverton Hall that we may be late for dinner. It will be all right.”

“You’re a collection of jewels, all of you.” Robin made an affectionately inclusive gesture. “What about Thanksgiving dinner at your house, Lillian?” she turned to her classmate.

“Not until four o’clock. I’ve barrels of time to squander,” Lillian declared extravagantly.

“Come on, friends and fellow-citizens!” Robin was now beckoning briskly to the sixteen girls of the dormitory group who had followed Phil and Barbara outside the store. “Please accept my profound apologies for having to pack you in, eight to a car. It will have to be done.”

“Try to regard the experience from the stoical standpoint of a sardine,” Phil advised comfortingly, but in a comfortless tone.

Her advice was received with a buzz of retaliating sallies from the giggling aspirants for sardine experience. Neither dark weather nor mishaps can long suppress the exuberant spirit of youth. It bubbles up like a magic spring at the first intimation of trouble ended and good fortune nigh. What might have been a most vexatious disappointment had been averted in the nick of time. In consequence, Baretti’s dinner guests were in high feather at the triumph of Robin, Phil and Barbara over calamitous circumstances.

Robin’s heart responded to the rollicking happy disturbance the double octette of girls were making as they piled themselves into the two waiting cars. She did not know what the rest of the day might bring forth but she was greatly inspirited by Signor Baretti’s promise to help.

“I must hurry away again, Signor Baretti. I must go back to town for Miss Moore and Miss Severn,” Robin explained a little later to the Italian as she saw the last of the dormitory girls ushered high and dry into the inn. “I’ll stop here on my return trip with the girls’ umbrellas. They’ll need them when they are ready to go over on the campus. I don’t believe it will ever stop raining.” Standing in the open door of the inn she made a grimace of mock despair.

“It rain, oh, way late tonight, mebbe,” prophesied Baretti. “I have look at the sky verra hard. Well, it is not that much to be sad to me if I have not many more than the dorm girls for the dinner. After the dinner, Pedro, my man, stay here at the restaurant. I am the one to go to the town and see Sabani. I know him. I speak the verra cross words to him. He knows how I can be verra mad. I make him send the busses to the campus after the ginnasio for the dorm girls.”