Ten minutes later there was a sudden blast of a flying automobile's horn in one of Queensville's quiet streets. In another instant the car had slackened speed and a young man rushed from the sidewalk and climbed aboard. Like a flash the machine sped forward again, followed by a series of angry, disappointed yells from three other youths who also dashed out from the sidewalk as if they had thought of going along.

A good many people observing the rather mysterious performance, as they sat upon their lawns and porches, or strolled on the street, were decidedly at a loss to know what to make of it all.

"Oh, I guess we're no wizards at all! No, nothing like that! No wizards about us! Not at all!" chuckled Paul Jones in a perfect rapture of delight. "No, we're no _wizards_!"

And although Philip, William and David expressed themselves in somewhat different language, it was apparent that they, too, entertained pretty much the same opinion as the highly elated Mr. Jones with regard to their being "No wizards, at all," whatever that may signify.

Yet now that the Chosen Trio had been again outwitted and again left behind, temporarily at least, there remained the problem of keeping well beyond their sight and reach. To do this and to do it without permitting those persistent young gentlemen to bar the Thirty from entering the limits of Queensville was no small undertaking.

The town was of only a few thousand population, and even now when filled with strangers and with strange automobiles from the larger cities near by, it was apparent that at any moment the four friends appeared on the princ.i.p.al streets they might expect to meet the very persons they most wished to avoid.

MacLester emphatically declared himself in favor of letting the Trio "go hang." If they "wanted to tag along clear to the Ship woods," he did not care. They'd have princ.i.p.ally their trouble for their pains. All they might discover as to the object of the expedition and the camp in that out-of-the-way place, would not, according to young Mr. MacLester's way of stating it, "Make 'em wise enough to hurt 'em." Whatever the reports they carried back to Lannington, no one would give them much credence anyway, he declared.

But Phil Way st.u.r.dily opposed any such surrender. The original determination to keep the real purpose of this long journey a secret could not be abandoned now, he argued, without a practical admission that Gaines and his followers had been too clever for them. Billy and Paul stood resolutely with Way. Meanwhile the Thirty had been traversing one dusty, unpaved street after another in the town's outskirts.

"They'll never be expecting to see us again to-day. Let's go back down town. If we keep our eyes open, we'll see them first, and that's all that's necessary," proposed Worth; and, being himself at the wheel, he turned the car toward the business district.

From no source came an objection. In ten minutes the machine was again standing just where it had been left before. Quite contrary to the expectations of the boys, also, they saw nothing whatever of the Trio, though they spent an hour looking about the little city and observing the hundreds of visitors.

Some had come, it appeared, simply for the day, to see the preparations for the great road races. Many were present because of a direct interest in the contests in one way or another and would remain until all was over. Racing drivers and the builders of their cars, automobile salesmen, tire men, newspaper men from many cities--motoring enthusiasts of a score of sorts and a hundred degrees of significance, from the young fellow who expected to own a runabout some day to the engineer who designed and would drive the most popular machine in the heavy car race--they were on the streets, in the hotels, thronging everywhere.

On barns, fences, trees, posts--anything that offered a chance to drive a nail, were signs, banners and all sorts of advertising matter. One might find himself informed on one post that he must use "Heapa" oil or be miserable for life. The very next post would tell him if he did not use "Slickem" oil he'd be sorry forever. And as the really quite conflicting announcements, admonitions, claims and a.s.sertions were in great variety and multiplied many times by their frequent repet.i.tion, any gentleman who might have set out to be guided by them would surely have had a serious time of it and have landed in a padded cell somewhere, sooner or later, undoubtedly.

In addition to the cosmopolitan character of the crowds--to say nothing of the diversity of the advertising posters and signs--were the town's decorations of flags and bunting everywhere. Then a band played on the steps of the Court House, in the heart of the little city, and the music, the chugging of engines, the confusion and excitement, the very odors--for where is the real motoring enthusiast who dislikes the smell of diffused gasoline fumes?--made a deep impression upon the Auto Boys.

It is very much to be feared, indeed, that they started for Camp Golden at last much more intent upon seeing the races the following Sat.u.r.day than upon delving into the secrets of the Ship woods the following morning.

By taking the longer route, followed by the race course, around to Gilroy, in going home, the four friends finished a complete circuit of the roads chosen for the stock car contest. In going to Queensville, it will be remembered, they turned due north and later almost directly west upon reaching the course, directly in front of the Gilroy post-office. From Queensville they ran almost directly south, thence east, northeast and north to Gilroy again.

The geographical situations of Camp Golden, Gilroy and Queensville the reader should have well in mind. Let him imagine a series of country roads forming a great, irregularly-shaped dipper. The handle is the road pa.s.sing the Ship woods. Where the handle joins the dipper itself, six miles west of the Auto Boys' camp, is Gilroy, a crude little country hamlet--no more. The rim of the dipper represents the roads making up the racing circuit. Nearly half way around, to the right, that is, north, thence west from Gilroy, is Queensville--twelve miles distant.

Continuing on around the rim is the little town of Chester, three miles beyond Queensville.

The "Ambulance station,"--a desperately sharp curve--marks the turn of the course to the east again, two miles further on. Then the edge of the dipper becomes very irregular as the road winds in and out through a wooded country, until at Far Creek Sawmill it strikes off due north.

Four miles ahead is Gilroy again, which hamlet, by this way around, is fourteen miles from Queensville.

Much work had been done on the roads comprising the racing circuit to put them in condition, and as Phil Way remarked, on the homeward trip this Sunday afternoon, "There was certainly going to be some excitement." Yet little he guessed how much more than excitement, merely, was in store for himself and his friends.

"I'll bet there _is_," quoth Billy Worth, answering Way's remark. "It'll be some exciting, for instance, about the time we meet Gaines' Roadster somewhere around the track. That very choice Trio will be out every day, more or less, and whether we go one way or the other, it will be pure luck and nothing else if we don't come face to face with them some time before the races are over."

And Billy's view of the matter was nothing if not plausible. There was no way of reaching Queensville from the camp without following the course of the proposed races. There was no cross road leading even in the direction of that town. By a very long detour the result named might possibly be accomplished, it was true, but it would be like going from New York to Philadelphia by way of Albany and Harrisburg.

This Sunday afternoon it was most fortunate for the Auto Boys that they chose to complete the circuit the races would follow, when leaving Queensville for Camp Golden. Had they gone the other way a meeting with the Trio would have been certain, for that select company of young gentlemen spent several hours on the opposite side of the course vainly watching.

Guided only by the direction the Thirty had taken after the rescue of Phil Way, Gaines and his a.s.sociates had set out in pursuit as rapidly as possible. Until dark they haunted the road to the north and east. Their utter lack of success was quite annoying.

In fact, Mr. Soapy Gaines became so irritated that his company could scarcely be called enchanting; unless, indeed, one were possessed of the peculiarity of enjoying being called a "crazy snapping turtle" and other like names, not well chosen, at least, if intended as terms of endearment. But as to Soapy's ruffled temper and conduct generally there will be opportunity for observation later. At this moment attention should return more directly to the Auto Boys.

"If we hadn't spent a whole half-day chasing around Queensville and back again, we might have had a good walk in the woods and maybe we would have found those three stones," growled Dave MacLester, toasting his hands over the campfire, for the evening had come on quite cold.

"Never mind, little one, never mind! You'll feel better after you've had your supper. Your poor, 'ittle tummy wants something. You'll feel better pretty soon." This language in a soft, fatherly tone from Paul Jones caused a smile. Even David smiled, too, for directly afterward Chef Billy announced the evening meal.

It was a pleasant thing to sit before the glowing fire, enjoying toasted crackers and toasted cheese after the major portion of the supper--baked beans, baked potatoes and bacon, and coffee, of course--was over. It was a pleasant thing to creep under the blankets in the tent, luxuriously tired, an hour and a half later.

Most exquisitely pleasant was it, also, to lie snug and comfortable listening to the tinkle of the little spring where the water flowed over the miniature cataract leading to the cleverly devised cooling system, and so to fall asleep at last.

CHAPTER XIV

AT THE CLARION RACING CAMP

The arrival of the Chosen Trio in Queensville did not occasion the excitement in that small city that at least Mr. Gaines had antic.i.p.ated.

Possibly there would have been a more noticeable interest had it not been that strangers and strange cars had already become, on account of the numbers present for the races, a drug on the market. Queensville people had grown quickly accustomed to the presence of visitors. Beyond a pa.s.sing glance the lumbering Roadster and its pa.s.sengers received little notice, therefore.

Soapy had counted so much upon the demonstration of lively interest the arrival of himself, his car and Pickton and Perth--whom he regarded as a kind of body-guard--would occasion that to attract little or none of such curious attention was a serious blow to his vanity.

The fault, Mr. Gaines in his own mind a.s.sured himself, lay in the very ordinary appearance of his friends. He would have to let it be known, he concluded, that he alone was the owner of the Roadster and that he, if not those with him, was a person of quite some consequence.

It was with difficulty that Pickton and Perth prevailed upon Gaines to do as they had originally agreed and look for quarters where they could prepare most of their own meals and so incur no considerable expense.

This accomplished, they quite readily found a really desirable place of the character desired. It was a vacant, one-story, white cottage.

Adjoining was a more pretentious house, the owner of both of which dwellings was desirous of taking in what money he might while the influx of strangers was on. For the moderate charge of five dollars for the week he gave the Trio the use of the cottage for themselves and permission to run their car into a shed in the rear of his own residence.

The three lads might have been very comfortable--might have fared well in all respects, in the situation presented, had Soapy been the least bit favorably disposed toward "roughing it." With the gasoline camp stove for their cooking, ample bedding, and water and similar accommodations already in the cottage and at their disposal--why, under the same conditions the Auto Boys, or any group of really congenial young fellows, would have lived in a delightfully care-free way!

But Gaines did not like the bare floor and he did not like the absence of such little conveniences as rocking chairs and electric lights. And although Mrs. Gaston, wife of the owner of the property, and a most pleasant, motherly old lady, sent over a mirror, a lamp, a small table and three kitchen chairs for the accommodation of the boys, to say nothing of a jar of canned peaches and a fresh rhubarb pie, Soapy "hoped he wasn't an object of charity just yet awhile."

Or as Mr. Freddy Perth expressed it, he "simply turned up his long, thin nose at the whole shooting match and acted like a beastly cad." Where and how anything remotely similar to a "shooting match" came into the situation may not be exactly clear. No doubt young Mr. Perth knew just what he was talking about; but at any rate the words quoted, it should be understood, were his own.

However, and notwithstanding Mr. Gaines' constantly expressed dissatisfaction, Pick and Fred went ahead with the plan to make the white cottage their headquarters for the week of the races. The location was pleasantly convenient. Only four blocks distant was the main street and the Crown Hotel. Here many of the racing car owners and drivers were staying and here, also, the committee in charge of the contests had its office.

Considerably disgusted with the failure again to find the Auto Boys and out of sorts with himself and everyone else, Gaines went alone to the hotel for his supper on Sunday night. Perth and Pickton enjoyed their evening meal just as much without him, it is possible, at the cottage.

And though they attempted nothing more intricate in the culinary art than boiling eggs, toasting bread and making coffee, they supplemented this fare with fruit from the stand down on the corner and so managed very well.

Soapy returned from the hotel to find the cottage uncomfortably cool and Fred and Tom both in bed--because they were tired and because they were warmer there. He sniffed contemptuously as he prepared to follow their example. Growing still more sulky, he requested both his friends to bear in mind who owned the car that brought them there. Even after he was in bed, Gaines felt moved to declare that he didn't care where the Auto Boys were or were not. He meant, he said, to enjoy the races.

He wanted to hear the hotel discussions, see the practice work and all things incident to the contests. So far as he was concerned, he at last concluded, "Worth and that bunch might run and jump off the edge of the earth if they wanted to." Which feat, by the way, had the Auto Boys known they had Mr. Gaines' free and complete permission to perform, they would quite likely have been glad to undertake for his especial accommodation, if for no other reason.

Now, although Mr. Tom Pickton was no better pleased with the temper Gaines displayed than was Mr. Frederick Perth, the two did not themselves become the firmer friends. Being fellow sufferers from Soapy's disagreeable manner, it would have been quite natural that every bond of friendship and sympathy between them should be strengthened. Yet quite the contrary was true.

Pickton more than half believed Perth responsible for the fact that Gaines had not invited him to supper at the hotel. Fred's somewhat inferior clothing, and his general lack of a kind of swaggering style, much affected by Soapy himself, made the latter ashamed to a.s.sociate with him. In this light, at least, Pickton viewed the matter. He reasoned that Gaines went by himself because to invite one made it necessary that he invite both the others. Thinking thus, he wished fervently that Fred were some place else.

On the other hand, young Mr. Perth resented in his thoughts, if not in words and actions, a certain secretive manner Pickton had shown more and more of late. He resented still further Soapy's selfish and sn.o.bbish conduct. So all in all, harmony and good-fellowship among the Chosen Trio's members, never strong, never founded on the deep, mutual love and respect that is the basis of all true friendship, was in a fair way to disappear entirely.

Monday morning presented little change in the chilly atmosphere of the white cottage. Soapy remained in bed until Perth called him to breakfast--again toast, eggs and coffee. Meanwhile Pickton had brought the Roadster around to the street in front, and after the morning repast suggested a trip over the course. As Gaines and Fred both liked this proposal, the feelings of all three toward one another became, for the time, more pleasant.

Earnest, serious practice by the racing drivers began this Monday morning and from four to ten o'clock the roads were closed against all others. The Trio ran down in the Roadster to the banked curve just south of Queensville to watch the work of the different cars and men. It was at this point that the main grandstand was to be. Work on the structure, rising in successive tiers of seats in rows hundreds of feet in length, was now nearly completed. No charge for admission would be made before the day of the races and from boxes for each of which, for the one big day, the price would be fifty dollars, the three lads viewed the coming and going of the machines and their crews.

A large, red car, stripped to the cha.s.sis, save for the hood, the low seats and fuel tank back of them, made the most consistent record of the morning. Repeatedly its driver covered the circuit at fifty-five mile speed and did not exceed a minute's difference in time between one lap and another.