To this the man answered nothing. He probably knew that this was a serious enough charge on which to hold him.

"We'll jest go back in th' car, too," went on Sandy, "since you know how to run 'em. But, mind you! No monkey tricks! Don't you try to run away with me."

"All right--get in," said the man, shortly. "I'll see if I can get her out of the ditch. You wouldn't have gotten me if that man with the hay had given me my share of the road."

"Maybe not," admitted Sandy, grimly, "but I _have_ got you, jest th'

same. Come on."

Sandy left his horse cropping the gra.s.s at the roadside, and got into the auto with his prisoner. After a few attempts, the machine was gotten out of the ditch, and the start back was begun. Sandy saw a farmer whom he knew, and asked him if he would bring the horse back to Oak Farm.

"And now we'll 'tend to your case," the young farmer remarked to the man in the auto. "I don't believe you told me what your name was," he added significantly.

"No, I didn't, and I don't intend to," snapped the stranger. "You can find out any way you like."

"Oh, we'll find out, all right," Sandy returned. "Drive on."

The man did not speak as he drove the car forward. They reached the house where the physician had been, and found him waiting; a very angry medical man indeed.

"So you got him; eh?" he called to Sandy.

"That's what I did. And I'd like to borrow your car to take him to jail, if you don't mind."

"I don't mind a bit, and I'll go along to lodge a charge against him.

There's a state law against anyone taking another person's automobile without permission. Who is he, anyhow, Sandy?"

"I don't know, and he won't tell."

The man maintained a sullen silence during the remainder of the trip, and when the office of Squire Blasdell was reached he was led inside by Sandy.

"I've got a prisoner here for you, Squire," announced the young farmer. "I don't know what his name is, and I don't exactly know what charge we can make against him. But he's been hanging around Oak Farm for some time, and he runs whenever anyone comes near him, and if that ain't suspicion I don't know what is."

"You're right there, Sandy," said the squire, who, in spite of the fact that he was about to foreclose on Oak Farm, was not on bad terms with the Apgars. The truth of the matter was that the squire only acted as agent for others whose money he put out on mortgages.

Personally he was sorry for the Apgars.

"Now then, Mister whatever-your-name-is," began the squire, "what about you?"

"I'll tell you nothing," said the man. "You have no right to hold me."

"He took my auto," broke in the doctor.

"Then we'll hold him on that charge, and we'll call him John Doe,"

decided the squire. "Maybe he'll change his tune after a bit. Lock him up," he ordered the constable in charge, and the mysterious man, as mysterious as ever, was led away.

"I'd like to ask one favor," he declared, halting a minute.

"You can ask, but I don't know as we'll grant it," spoke the squire.

"I've left a dog up in the old cabin," the man went on. "I guess you know the place," he said to Sandy. "It's the cabin where the girls took shelter from the rain. There's a dog tied there and he might starve to death. I wish you'd feed him."

"I'll do that," responded Sandy, quickly. "I'll look after him, too.

He's ent.i.tled to some consideration, even if you ain't."

The man said nothing.

"Is it your dog?" asked the squire.

"I--I found him," answered the man, hesitatingly, "and he likes me. I wouldn't want to see him starve."

"He shan't!" promised Sandy.

Then, as the queer character was locked up, Sandy started back for Oak Farm, puzzling over the mysterious man and his object.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE MONEY BOX

"What did he say?"

"Who was he?"

"What was his object?"

These, and a dozen other questions like them, were showered on Sandy Apgar when he arrived at the farm, some little time later, after having seen the mysterious man safely locked up in the town jail.

"Now there's no use askin' me who he is, or what he wants," declared the young farmer. "All I know is that I caught him. He won't talk."

"You did a good piece of work," declared Mr. Pertell, "and a day or so of jail food may make the fellow change his mind. Well, it's too late to do any moving pictures to-day. We'll put off the barn-burning until to-morrow."

"Well, there's one thing we can't put off until to-morrow and that is looking after that dog," remarked Sandy. "The poor fellow may be frantic by now."

"May we go with you?" asked Alice.

"Surely," answered Sandy.

"Come along, Ruth--and anybody else who wants to," she added.

"Count me in!" exclaimed Paul.

"The same here," laughed Russ.

So the five set off for the lonely cabin.

"I can't understand how the dog came to be there, though," mused Russ, as they walked on through the woods. "That fellow wasn't at the cabin the last time we looked."

"But that was several days ago," Paul reminded him. "He may have been staying there ever since, thinking we had given up going there.