Is it necessary to state that Paul Jones was the first speaker and that Dave MacLester was the second?

"Well, scoot ahead, somebody! See if we can get down the bank and into that pair of ruts through the gra.s.s, yonder, without turning turtle or blowing out a tire."

This command, briskly delivered, came from Billy Worth who leaned, tired and dusty, on the steering wheel.

"All O.K.! Come ahead!" shouted Phil Way a second later. "The track down the bank is here all right, but under the gra.s.s. Gently, Bill!"

With a sudden plunge and stiff jerk the car went down the incline leading from the road and across a broad, shallow ditch. Then slowly it rolled onto the gra.s.s and weed-grown trail leading up to the valley.

Way walked rapidly in advance looking out for pitfalls or possible causes of danger to tires. "Might as well get the road cleared at once, fellows," he said, and the hint was sufficient. Paul and Dave jumped down from the slowly moving machine to lend a.s.sistance.

Heavy wagons in summers that were past and the logging sleds of the timber crews in winter had broken a well-marked road. It was still rough but odd chunks of wood and the stones found here and there could be and were thrown to one side.

Paul Jones voiced with considerable earnestness the opinion that he would rather pilot the car than "heave dornicks" out of the road; but a subdued chuckle from Billy, lazily driving forward as the course was announced clear, was all the comfort his observation brought him.

"S'pose we needn't go more than thirty or forty miles back from the road!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed MacLester grimly. He was quite out of breath from the effort of up-ending a heavy pole that had lain across the trail. Also, as has been noted earlier, he was just the least bit tired and impatient.

"No farther back than we have to go to find a snug camping place," Phil responded with extra good humor. For cheerfulness is contagious and does a great deal more to brighten up another's despondent mood than any sort of remonstrance against being glum could do. "Maybe that little point down by the creek is just what we want, now," Way went on gayly. "Hold up, Bill, till we peek around here some."

The point did offer many advantages, being a low, gra.s.sy place, like a small peninsula, where a water course curved about till it finally reached the main stream. The creek formed a considerable pool just below the junction with the water-worn trench; for, while the latter, though deep, was now nearly dry, it was apparent that in time of rain its torrents rushed into the larger stream with both force and volume.

"Rather flat and low, but pretty good at that," observed Way, hopefully surveying the situation. "But maybe we'd better look a little further.

What do you think, Mac?"

"Reckon so," said Dave, and telling Worth to wait, the two went forward to investigate.

Paul Jones meanwhile had been tracing the deep, narrow bed of the smaller stream, filled with the idea that its source must be in some spring. And presently he came running back shouting at the top of his voice--"Yelling like a wooden Indian," Billy said--"Say! oh, say! Here's the hunky-doriest place you ever dreamed about! Here's the one spot in all your natural life, for a fact!"

The rapturous enthusiasm of Jones' tones caused Worth to jump down from the car and hurry toward him. Dave and Phil, now some distance forward, also hastened back, and together the quartette climbed the rise of ground toward the woods. What they found fully accounted for Paul's delighted manner.

Here on a shelving plateau of conglomerate rock, overgrown with moss and patches of velvety gra.s.s, was a level s.p.a.ce several hundred feet in length and perhaps fifty feet from the abrupt descent at its front to the rough, irregular wall of natural stonework, rising as high as the tops of the trees, at the back.

From a wide but shallow cave, in the wall at the rear, there trickled a beautifully clear and cool spring. For a time the water rested in a natural basin in the rocks, then overflowed through a tiny channel of its own making. Deeper and wider this channel grew and so became the water course, previously described, leading to the creek.

Many small ash, beech and chestnut trees somehow found foothold in the earthy crevices of the rocks, but of underbrush, fallen timber or similar obstructions the place was quite clear. Being much higher than the valley before it, the little plateau caught the last rays of the sinking sun most charmingly as it also received the welcome visits of the wandering breezes that pa.s.sed quite over the lower land.

Of firewood, that most necessary factor in the making of a camp, there was plenty both below and above the broad shelf. Water of the purest quality the spring afforded in abundance. For bathing, fishing or such other accommodations as a good-sized stream could afford, the creek was but a few hundred feet away.

"Great!" exclaimed Mr. William Worth approvingly. "Simply carniverous!"

By which expression, it will be understood, he meant that the spot under inspection was extremely satisfactory, rather than exactly what he called it.

"Never get the car up here!" declared MacLester, looking about doubtfully. "Never get the car up here in the world!"

"You leave that to me," cried Paul, bl.u.s.teringly, as if Mac's remark were a challenge to himself personally. "I've heard of half-backs and quarter-backs and all that sort of thing, but I'll be blamed, Dave, if you aren't the champion hold-back of the United States! We'll get the car up here like rolling off a log!"

And although Paul's expression was possibly as much overdrawn as it was picturesque, it may be stated at once that a means of running the Thirty up to the higher level was provided without great difficulty. The cutting down of a few straggling trees and clearing away of the brush where the southern edge of the wide ledge sloped off easily toward the public road, made all that remained quite safe and easy.

The net result was that, ere the shadows grew so deep as to cause a suspension of operations, the car with all its heavy load stood close beside the shallow cave and the spring. The campfire blazed cheerily a few minutes later and the sweet sizzle of frying bacon, always delicious to a hungry man, filled the pure, wholesome air of the woods.

The Auto Boys were very, very comfortable. Of this fact they a.s.sured themselves over and over again, although at no time was there room for the slightest doubt in the case. And leaving them in this pleasant situation, weary but entirely tranquil, restful and luxuriously content, attention must at this point be returned to Mr. Soapy Gaines, and the two companions of that very unselfish and highly agreeable young gentleman.

It was on Thursday afternoon, it will be remembered, that the Chosen Trio set out from Lannington. Gaines' big and clumsy Roadster was loaded heavily. Freddy Perth at the wheel, Soapy at his side and Pickton buried among baggage strapped on and around the rumble seat, they headed toward Sagersgrove by the most direct route. Without mishap the little town of Waterloo was reached by dusk and there the night was spent. Pickton had so adroitly planned matters that Gaines registered at the village hotel for the entire party. He meant also that Soapy should have entirely to himself the pleasant task of settling the bill in the morning. But it was not to be. Very unselfishly that young gentleman ventured the supposition, when breakfast was over that, as he was furnishing the car for the trip, his companions would probably be prepared to pay the traveling expenses.

"Oh, whack 'em up all around," suggested Perth. "Thought that was understood."

Pickton said nothing.

"Well, by George! I don't pay anybody's but my own!" growled Gaines. "If anybody thinks I'm soft, they better think again."

This shot was so obviously intended for Pick that he flushed hot and scarlet. "Sure! Everybody's to pay his own way!" he said. Rather sheepishly he added, though: "We might have got breakfast cheaper along the road somewhere."

And the foregoing dialogue but serves to ill.u.s.trate the feeling that existed among the three companions. The unity, mutual trust and generous friendship which characterized all the relations of the Auto Boys with reference to one another were wholly missing in the Chosen Trio. The wonder is, indeed, that these three had remained together so long.

True, Soapy wanted someone for company and someone to operate the car and to take care of it. Pickton had his own selfish end to serve by making use of Gaines in such ways as he could and Perth--Fred would have borne a great deal just for the sake of being around the Roadster.

Also, Fred liked both the other two, in a way. It was not his disposition to find fault or to be over-critical at any time. It did not so much as occur to him, for instance, that the uncomfortable rumble seat, hemmed in with baggage, should be occupied by Soapy any part of the time as the car chugged on noisily but at no mean speed, toward Sagersgrove.

It lacked still two hours of noon when Eli Gouger, self-const.i.tuted detective in Sagersgrove, beheld the heavy machine of the Chosen Trio coming down the main street of that peaceful town. He looked again and a sudden thought smote upon his brain. Then he acted.

Perhaps it should be explained that, following their uncomfortable experience in pursuit of the Auto Boys through the Cowslip marshes, Mr.

Gouger had even less admiration for Marshal Wellock than he had entertained before. And now, as he saw the strange automobile approaching, he realized that it was traveling at a considerably higher speed than the ordinances of the town permitted. Also he realized that if Marshal Wellock chanced to see the law's violation by these young strangers he would pounce upon them instantly.

In no mood was the marshal, of late particularly, to let any motorist escape if there was the slightest reason for an arrest. The officer had been made the b.u.t.t of too much ridicule as a result of that chase that ended with him head first in the mud to be in a very amiable temper. He wanted only the excuse and he would clap into jail any strange automobile user who entered the town.

Well aware of all this, and well aware that he, himself, detective though he feign would be, was powerless to make an arrest, Mr. Gouger hastily planned a deep and crafty plan. He would win for himself a degree of glory which should make Marshal Wellock appear, in contrast, a most negligent and inefficient officer, to say the least.

Frantically waving his arms, Mr. Gouger rushed into the street as the strange car and its three pa.s.sengers drew near. Pickton brought the machine to a halt.

"You chaps will get arrested if ye don't watch out!" declared Mr.

Gouger, vehemently, a little irritated by Gaines' instant and by no means polite inquiry, "What's hurting _you_?"

"Fact is, you've been speeding half way through town. I own a machine, myself, an' I know. Maybe there's a warrant out for ye now," he continued rapidly.

Pickton's jaw fell and Gaines felt a giving way inside as if his upper and lower halves had suddenly parted company at the waist line.

"Guess--guess--we'd better not stop to talk about it then," said Freddy Perth, brokenly, but with a sadly forced grin.

"Tell ye what, slip 'round here with me. Drive up slow. I'll get ye into my barn an' a little later ye can slip out o' town," Mr. Gouger suggested. There was a gleam in his eye, however, and a sort of internal chuckle in his tones that would have been a warning had any of the Trio noticed them.

"Well, blame it all! Show us _where_," growled Pickton, noticeably bolder now. "Lead on!"--This with solemn, dramatic air that would have been ridiculous had it not been so tragic.

Mr. Gouger wasted time in very few more words. Through an alley he escorted the Trio, still in the car, to the yard at the rear of his own modest, frame dwelling in a side street close by. Asking the lads to leave their car partially screened from view beneath the low-branching cherry trees, he invited them into a small, tightly-boarded cowstable.

"Stay in here a spell. I'll be back," grinned the would-be detective, and suddenly stepping out he closed the door and locked it by means of a large padlock attached to a chain. "Ye can consider yourselves under arrest _right now_," sang out Mr. Gouger, then, in tones of triumph, "I'll have the constable here right off an' ye can go before the 'squire an' pay up. Don't be speedin' next time till ye know there's no _detectives_ around."

The astonishment of Messrs. Gaines, Pickton and Perth may be more easily imagined than successfully described. They did not suspect the purpose and the reason for the imposition that had been practiced upon them, nor did they realize that their captor had no authority to make an arrest himself. He had taken this means of detaining them until he could summon a constable, apparently, because he did not care to undertake the arrest alone. Having no knowledge of Mr. Gouger's lack of admiration for Marshal Wellock, of course, the lads ascribed the motives of that very able disciple of Mr. Pinkerton entirely to a desire to share in the fine to be imposed upon them.

These general conclusions the three boys reached in an extremely short s.p.a.ce of time. What should they do? The day was warm and the tightly-closed stable was like an oven. In the cherry trees and along the hedge, bordered by bachelor b.u.t.tons, at the opposite side of Mr.