"Well, I guess they haven't seen the last of us yet, anyway, eh?" Pick answered in that way in which he so often knuckled to Soapy's humor, leading that young gentleman on to do the thing he himself most wished to do.

"I should rather _guess_ they hadn't," Gaines responded, as if the idea of pursuit were wholly his own,--"I'll show 'em a trick or two yet."

"The first thing is to find out where they are; at least, which way they went," put in Perth, quietly.

Gaines turned on him angrily. "What's that got to do with it? You leave that to me!" he said.

And while it would appear that the information Fred mentioned was, under all the circ.u.mstances, quite essential and really did have quite a great deal to do with the case, that young gentleman made only a wry face in answer. Soapy did not see him. Quite possibly Perth did not intend that he should.

In fruitless running from place to place the three boys spent the day.

Repeatedly were they on the verge of falling out with one another completely. Only because Pickton bore Gaines' insolence in silence, or turned it aside by some flattering or cajoling remark, did these two get on at all in this time of trouble and disappointment,--the sort of time that really measures friendships and motives.

Perth was content to have little to say, usually accepting the suggestions and remarks of the others without comment. He drove the car, for the most part, and as he liked it very much, earnestly hoped the proposed long trip following after the Auto Boys would not be abandoned.

Wednesday came and the Trio, glum and despondent, talked a great deal, again came very near to serious quarreling, and achieved nothing. And now the objects of their chiefest interest and the cause of their chagrin were two days upon their way. But whither?

"'Three stones piled on top of each other to mark the place,'" mused Pickton over and over again. "They _think_ they have something great in sight, but I'll bet they don't know exactly what, any more than we do.

And they think they're so plagued smart! We've just _got_ to take some of the conceit out of 'em."

"That's what!" Soapy Gaines a.s.serted, but rather dubiously.

"Might as well talk in our sleep, for all the good just talk's doing,"

Perth was moved at last to say with some asperity; and his views would appear to be not far wrong. However, he was called a pessimist, or some other word amounting to the same thing, by Pickton, while Soapy insisted quite violently, "You leave that to me."

The fact that the Auto Boys had disappeared almost as if by magic and at a time when their machine was supposed to be indefinitely laid up for repairs, Pickton and Gaines were obliged reluctantly to admit.

That their intention of following after the chums looked more and more ridiculous as the hours pa.s.sed, and they had no notion whatever as to the direction they should take, was something of which they did not care to be reminded. Yet it is likely that for want of any clue whatever, and their inability to find one,--for none of the three was particularly resourceful,--the Chosen Ones would have been forced to abandon their scheme at last, but for the merest chance by which some valuable information came to them.

Early on Thursday Freddy Perth sat looking over the morning paper while Soapy and Pick were starting a fresh discussion of the necessity of taking some of the conceit out of someone, needless to mention whom. The three were on the lawn at Perth's home. The Roadster stood at the curb.

MARSHAL MIRED

SAGERSGROVE OFFICIAL PULLED OUT OF SWAMP BY YOUTHS HE PURSUED.

The foregoing headlines came to Fred's notice as he tried to read while still following the conversation of his two friends, thread-bare though their subject now a.s.suredly was. Half mechanically at first, then with lively interest he noted the following:

"Sagersgrove, June--In a light automobile in which they had set out to overtake and arrest four youthful tourists from Lannington who pa.s.sed through Sagersgrove yesterday, Marshal Wellock and Eli Gouger, the latter a self-appointed detective, plunged over a bank into Cowslip marshes west of here last night. Both were buried to their necks in mire.

"The locality is practically a wilderness and the automobile would have settled beyond recovery in the swamp but for the merest accident of a.s.sistance being quickly obtained. The touring party the officers were after had encamped on a ridge of high land a half-mile beyond and responded to the cries for aid. Wellock and Gouger were able to drag themselves out of the marsh and the car of the tourists pulled their automobile out when only the seat remained above mud. Marshal Wellock was saved the necessity of arresting his rescuers for it developed that his suspicion that the youths had stolen their car was unfounded. The four strangers had themselves taken the marsh road by mistake. They were piloted to the State pike by the officers."

Having read this interesting item through twice, the second time very slowly and thoughtfully, Freddy Perth again listened to the conversation of Pickton and Gaines. They still discussed the possible whereabouts of the Auto Boys.

"Seems likely to me that they may have gone west,--away out through Sagersgrove and beyond," observed young Mr. Perth, after a minute or two, a self-complacent twinkle in his eye.

"About as likely as a muley cow having horns, eh, Gaines?" Pick answered.

"Or a--or a dog or anybody else having 'em," Soapy responded, lamely.

"Well, of course I never did know anything about it, and of course you two _do_ know all about it. Still, when you get through with all this stuff you've said over and over ever since Tuesday, till honestly I'm sick of hearing it, just read that!"--and Perth held out the newspaper, his finger indicating the important item. There was triumph unlimited in his manner.

"Aw, let's see!" growled Pickton, doubtingly. Perth's self-satisfied smile irritated him. He took the paper and, Soapy peering over his shoulder, both read the item through.

"Humph! May be them and it may not," was Pick's comment.

"Don't be a hogshead! It's them all right," Gaines answered brusquely.

"Why, they're two hundred miles away by this time!"

"Yes, sir! And they're headed for the Gold Cup road races at Queensville," put in Perth, quickly. "That's just where that old State pike goes. I remember seeing the map!"

Reluctantly Pickton admitted that the tourists mentioned in the newspaper dispatch must be Phil Way's party. Inwardly he denounced his luck that he himself had not been first to discover the news.

Reluctantly, too, he admitted that the four chums were apparently headed for the Gold Cup automobile races,--a series of road contests over a twenty-six mile course, scheduled for Sat.u.r.day of the following week.

However,--"Don't see, though, what that mystery of the 'three stones piled up to mark the place,' that they seem to make so much of, has to do with races," he persisted.

"Maybe they're going to have a lunch stand at the track. Maybe they rented s.p.a.ce for it by mail and had three stones piled up so's they'd know their place when they got there. Just like that bunch, figuring to earn some money!"

This thought, advanced by Soapy, really did that young gentleman credit, he so rarely had an idea of his own. And although Pick declared as boldly as he felt prudent, that the three stones he had heard mentioned so mysteriously had been placed one upon another long years before, which fact he had also heard stated, the former insisted that his own notion of the matter was correct.

While in no sense agreeing as to this, Pickton, for reasons of his own, carried the discussion no further. In his own mind was the thought that he, at least, would find out if the three stones did not mark some spot vastly more important than Soapy pictured. Let Gaines and Perth think what they might, the main thing was to be starting in pursuit.

"If it's us for Sagersgrove and the old State pike west, we can't move too fast," he said. "We can trail them all right from there, and catch them by Sunday, I'll bet!"

Gaines and Perth gave prompt acquiescence. The Roadster was run to its home garage at once, and there followed the trying packing and repacking of touring equipment which inexperience always encounters.

Preparations for a hurried departure had been going forward, in a haphazard way, for a long time. The result was an acc.u.mulation of much baggage that was not needed, and the utter absence of several items both desirable and necessary. Out of such chaos order was brought before noon, however, and the three lads separated to meet again at one o'clock.

Their good-bys were said, their car at last lacked nothing which could well be carried on a machine of its type, and the Chosen Trio headed toward Sagersgrove promptly at the hour named.

"Now burn up the road," quoth Mr. Soapy Gaines; and Perth, at the steering wheel, answered, "We'll see the Gold Cup races, anyhow."

"Enough more than races, you take it from me," said young Mr. Pickton, grimly, still thinking of--what?

CHAPTER VII

A NIGHT ADVENTURE

The cries for help which broke upon the quiet of the night, rousing the Auto Boys as they slept, they quickly answered. With what result has been told in the Sagersgrove item appearing in the Lannington morning paper, the second day following.

Briefly, the circ.u.mstances were that, his mind overheated by his large estimate of his own importance, Marshal Wellock's imagination got the better of him. True, the four young strangers had appeared to be in a great hurry. True, one does not often see, even in larger cities than Sagersgrove, four mere youths enjoying a touring car equipped for long-distance work. Also the Sagersgrove operator had plainly hinted to the marshal the telegram the lads received looked decidedly queer. And to one unacquainted with the facts, it must be admitted, also, that such an impression was quite natural.

All in all, the b.u.mptious officer, believing he saw a glowing opportunity to distinguish himself, enlisted one Eli Gouger in his enterprise, not so much because he desired that gentleman's a.s.sistance, as for the reason that Mr. Gouger was possessed of a motor car. He used the machine, a light runabout, in his business of ice-cream peddling, on Sunday afternoons particularly, and on various occasions when not occupied with another line of activity he pursued, namely, that of general detective.

In this connection it may as well be stated quite frankly that if Mr.

Gouger had ever succeeded in detecting anything more than some small boys, whom he once caught filching cherries from his trees, the world at large had yet to learn of it. But perhaps that was the fault of people who might have employed him, but didn't. He always had said he never got half a chance in detective work, though he liked it ever so much better than the ice-cream business.

Be this as it may, Mr. Gouger, private detective, had eagerly joined Marshal Wellock in his proposal that they pursue the four mysterious youths who, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the marshal himself declared, had stolen the automobile in which they attracted so much attention in front of the telegraph office.