Mile after mile slipped to the rear, but slowly now, for the road was a constant succession of deep ruts, miniature mountain chains and great, half-dried holes of mud. The late June sun was going down. Blackbirds flew in noisy flocks from one to another of the dense thickets growing in frequent and extensive patches as far as eye could reach over the low land at either side of the wretched way.

"Well, if this _is_ the road, we better go where it isn't," muttered Billy Worth, his arms beginning to feel the effects of driving over the painfully distressing course.

"Oh, stop your growling!" Dave answered a little savagely. "This road will be all right when we get to the high ground where the trees are yonder! And by the Old Harry! Why should you hold me responsible? Never knew it to fail, anyhow, that whoever it is that half breaks his neck and nearly gets left behind, to dig up the road statistics for a trip or any part of one, is from that minute blamed right and left for every hole that's found and for every stone that's struck."

In which observation young Mr. MacLester was not at all wrong.

Identically the same weakness of human nature crops out in so many places that none can fail to recognize it. Phil Way saw and felt the truth of Dave's remarks at once.

"Does look better on ahead. Can't expect good going all the time," he said. It was a way of his. He had turned aside and prevented storms which might have grown to serious proportions among the four in just such manner time upon time.

Nevertheless, the promised improvement did not come with the higher places to which the rough trail in due time led. Two parallel ruts among the gra.s.s and low underbrush were all that now remained to indicate a road of any sort. Now, too, a thick woods, without so much as a fence between, bounded the course on both sides. The sun was lost to view, the late twilight of a June night was closing in. For nearly two hours not a human habitation had been seen.

Away to the east stretched the swampy brush-grown country that had bordered the line of progress for many miles. To the west there appeared only the scarcely pa.s.sable path leading deeper and deeper into the forest, hemming in the course on north and south.

Billy had brought the car to a halt. Unmistakably the Auto Boys were as nearly lost as one can well be on a public highway--(but there are many just such)--of a prosperous and wealthy commonwealth.

"Anyhow it makes me think that I always was fond of white meat,"

chirped Paul Jones, trying to put a cheerful countenance upon a truly depressing situation.

"If you don't mind a suggestion, Jones, I'd say that it's better not to talk of what you aren't likely to get," put in Phil Way, a little soberly. "Just some of that ham and bread and b.u.t.ter and beans sounds good to me. So if Billy will make some coffee we can go into camp pretty comfortably right here. In the morning we can go back, if we can't do anything else."

"Gee! I always did like chicken, though!" persisted Jones, as if Melancholy had marked him for her own, and there was no remedy for his feelings but the refreshment he mentioned.

"Here, too! If we had a good supper, it would brace us all up," Worth put in.

"Shucks! We'll _have_ a good supper," remonstrated Phil, impatiently.

"Who'll get some water? Wish I knew where. Come on, Dave! Likely there's a good, clear creek just over this rise of ground. You make the fire, Paul."

So Way and MacLester started off with a bucket while Chef Billy set to work with his provisions. In five minutes Jones had a bright fire blazing beside an old log, where an open, gra.s.sy place offered comfortable seats upon the ground, then he began unloading such baggage as would probably be needed. Yet every minute or two he would trot around to where Worth's supper preparations were in progress, sniffing the air, and smiling in a most delighted state of antic.i.p.ation. "And won't Way be surprised!" he said. "Just listen to me when he comes back."

At last Phil and Dave did come. They had been obliged to go a long way to reach the valley and the stream they knew must be there, and it was now quite dark.

The embers of the fire glowed brightly, offering a truly comfortable sense of companionship. In the bright glow's midst stood the big coffee pot which had seen service many times before, also a tightly covered, black roasting-pan. The two boys put down the bucket, borne between them on a short pole and Way at once busied himself in opening up a big bale of bedding.

"All-I-wants-is-my-chicken," half sang, half chanted Paul Jones.

"Oh, forget it!" drawled Phil, impatiently, creating a laugh--perhaps because it was not often he descended to plain, unvarnished slang.

"You've been talking chicken all day. My! that coffee smells good," he added, just to take the rough edge off his speech.

"A nice drumstick and a slice or two of white meat. U-m-m!" sighed Jones, as if he certainly would expire directly if his wish were not gratified.

An impatient growl from Phil elicited another laugh in which Jones joined with greatest merriment. Then in another moment--

"Come on, here! Get your festal board ready!" commanded Chef Billy and directly he drew the black, covered pan from the coals and lifted the lid. Ah, what savory smell was that! Chicken--roast chicken, and positively no mistake about it.

"Say!" This e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, his face lighted up bright as the blazing coals, was all Phil could muster.

"Well, I guess maybe we're no wizards! No, we're no wizards--nothing like that at all," chirped Paul Jones in his peculiarly happy way. "No!

Don't take a wizard to do these little tricks! Don't think it for a minute!"

"Where ever _did_ you get that chicken?" demanded Phil, completely puzzled. "This is what your talking about white meat meant, is it?"

Then they told him how Mrs. Tyler Gleason, whose good friendship they had won out on the farm the year before, sent the chicken, all nicely roasted, expressly for the expedition. All four lads had been at the farm and at the "Retreat" in the ravine on Sunday afternoon and in confidence told Mr. and Mrs. Gleason of their plan to start their journey on Monday. The unexpected but very welcome contribution to their stock of provisions arrived but an hour before the car was loaded. Phil being so busily engaged in putting the blinders over the eyes of the too-confident Trio, had not, of course, known of the gift. The others saved the fowl for supper purposely to surprise him.

"Nothing to do but warm it up, and way off here on the edge of nowhere, we have as fine a roast chicken as ever came down the pike," quoth Billy Worth. And although it must be admitted that any roast chicken pursuing its way upon the pike, or any other roadway, would be nothing short of extraordinary, the fact remains that Mrs. Gleason's offering was all that could be desired.

Always master of ceremonies in such matters, Billy did the carving and a good-sized thimble would have contained all that remained of the roast fowl, apart from the dismembered skeleton, when supper was over. The best way to pick a bone really right up to the last shred, inclusive, never was with knife and fork, anyway.

Ample quant.i.ties of coffee, bread and b.u.t.ter and the other good things the regular store of the cheese-box larder afforded, made the entire supper so successful that, on the whole, the boys contemplated their situation with no serious misgivings as they gathered about the campfire. The croaking of the frogs in the broad expanse of swamp and marsh land to the east, the profound quiet, and intense darkness in the woods on either side, the flickering lights and shadows of the blaze before them, were well calculated to inspire dread and apprehension if not downright fear; but so used to depending upon themselves--so self-reliant, therefore, were these four friends that the thought of being fearful or allowing themselves to be uncomfortable on account of their lonely surroundings, lost though they practically were, did not occur to one of them. So much, then, for the worth of a clear conscience and the habit of self-confidence.

And again, notwithstanding their somber surroundings and the annoying lack of knowledge as to their precise whereabouts, the four friends were by no means without equipment to make themselves quite comfortable. Long winter evening discussions, plans and preparations had not been for nothing. Even to rubber-covered sleeping bags which, just as an experiment, perhaps, would have made a pouring rain something to be invited rather than feared, the camp and touring outfit was complete.

Just for one night it was not worth while to put up the tent or to unpack a large part of the car's load, but blankets to spread upon the ground, others for covering, and a tarpaulin for the car, were all within easy reach.

Drowsiness came early, under the influence of the fire's genial warmth and in the midst of Paul's voluble discourse on the probable extent of time lost, due to losing the road, the other boys drew their blankets over them and with a laugh bade him good-night. There being "nothing else for P. Jones, Esquire, to do," as he himself expressed it, he, also "sought the arms of Morpherus Nodinski."

Again quoting the words of "P. Jones, Esquire," it must be "that frogs sleep all day, for how else can they stay up to holler all night?"

Certainly there was little diminishing of the weird clamor from the marshes as the night advanced. All else was still as death. Not even an owl disturbed the forest's dark solitude.

And the Auto Boys slept on. The greater part of the night had pa.s.sed, but no glimmer of dawn had yet appeared when there came suddenly like a wail of dire distress, louder far than the frogs' deep croaking, a long drawn-out cry--"Help!" And again and yet again, "Help! Help!"

Dave was the first awakened. The second call completely roused him and he had the whole camp astir in another five seconds. Once more, and thrice repeated, came the wailing, drawn-out cry.

CHAPTER VI

ON TO THE GOLD CUP RACES

"Yes, sir, they have went. I don't know nothing else about it," spoke the young fellow employed as general utility man in Knight & Wilder's garage. His princ.i.p.al work consisted of polishing metal and pumping up tires, but laboring under an impression that he was an automobile salesman, he put on very swaggering airs. Just now he affected scarcely to notice three boys who made inquiry concerning the proposed tour of Phil Way and his friends.

Mr. Knight, coming up at the moment, told the important young gentleman in an undertone that his deportment in the establishment was not that of publicity. Such being the case, he sent the youth to gather up some tools which a touring party had borrowed and left lying on the curb, as was certainly very good of them and very honest.

Then Mr. Knight quizzed the three lads, who were none other than Gaines, Pickton and Perth. It appeared, he said, with a sly smile, that Phil Way and his party had gone away on a trip. Then he asked them about their own plans, but they knew his friendliness toward the four chums too well to divulge a great deal. Still, they could not help showing the chagrin they felt upon learning that the Auto Boys had really departed the preceding day.

Seeing their ill-humor in the matter the senior partner of the establishment made various remarks to the effect that none but the most active and alert individuals could expect to cope successfully with such clever chaps as Billy Worth, Phil Way, MacLester and Jones. Indeed, he was of the opinion, he said, that no one--referring to no person in particular, of course--but in general, _no one_,--need feel disturbed if Phil Way and his crowd of fellows did get ahead of him or them; because Phil and Billy and the others were really exceptionally able men,--in fact, quite out of the ordinary with regard to intelligence and good judgment.

The whole effect of Mr. Knight's discourse, as he no doubt intended, was to make Gaines really sour, Pickton's vanity decidedly ruffled and Freddy Perth deeply humiliated, sick at heart and ready to admit that he was no match for such fellows as Way had gathered about him.

"Oh, come on!" growled Pick, at last, and when a half minute later the three were again in Gaines' Roadster at the curb outside, he slammed in the clutch so violently that Soapy just escaped being thrown out. To the Automobile Club, to the Park Garage,--to all places they considered in the remotest degree likely to afford information of the direction the Auto Boys had taken, the Trio went.

With furious impatience but still vainly, they hustled from one end of the city to another. Repeatedly they drove past Dr. Way's residence, as if to make sure, time after time, that none of the four friends was about the green and yellow shed. All they could learn was that the chums had driven away, their car laden as if they meant to go to the Pacific Coast, at least, the preceding afternoon.

"I _thought_ it was funny that only Way and Jones went to the ball game.

And they did it just for a blind, too!" said Pickton grimly.

"You thought nothing of the kind!" growled Gaines. "Least if you did, it's a fine time to be telling it!"