Chapter X: The Passing Automobile

After the bustle of getting under way again had quieted down and the car was speeding merrily through the woodland and past the pleasant farms of the Oxbow Valley, Agnes began to talk eagerly to Neale O'Neil about the all-absorbing topic which occupied her mind.

"How much do you suppose Mr. Maynard really knows about the stealing of Mr. Collinger's car?" she demanded.

"Not a thing!" said her boy friend, promptly.

"Oh, Neale!"

"No. I know Mr. Maynard. He's a perfectly square man, I am sure. I don't suppose he ever noticed Saleratus Joe until I called his attention to him."

"Where do you suppose they have gone?" queried the girl, starting on another tack.

"Who?"

"That Joe and the Brady man."

"Ask me an easier one," laughed Neale O'Neil.

"But can't we do anything about it if we run across them?" she cried.

"Joe and Brady?" gasped Neale, in wonder.

"Yes."

Neale eyed her quizzically for a long half minute--that is, with one eye. The other he kept faithfully on the road ahead.

"Aggie," he said, "you beat the world. Mucilage isn't in it with you for sticking to a thing when your mind is once set upon it."

"Well, I don't care!" she pouted.

"Oh, yes you do. You evidently do care or you wouldn't be talking about that stolen car all the time. What's the odds where Mr. Brady and his chauffeur have gone? You don't suppose Brady knows anything about Mr. Collinger's machine himself, do you?"

"Of course he does! I believe he had it stolen," cried the girl.

"And if he did, so much the more reason for his not knowing anything about what was done with the car. That's what Mr. Maynard intimated. Brady would have no use for it. And I doubt if anybody could use it long without being arrested. Hard to hide an automobile nowadays. Unless the thieves took it away up into Canada and sold it, maybe."

"Surely that Saleratus Joe couldn't have done that," rejoined Agnes, instantly, "for he couldn't have gone there and got back so quickly."

"Good girl. Female detective, I tell you!" chortled Neale. "But how about the other fellow?"

"Who--that awful Brady?"

"Cricky! No. They say there were two fellows in Mr. Collinger's car when it was driven away from the court house. And maybe he--the second chap--has the car now."

"Oh, dear me! I'd like to know," sighed Agnes.

This first day's journey was rather long; the smaller girls were tired by mid-afternoon. So was Sammy Pinkney, although he would not admit the fact. Tess and Dot went frankly to sleep in the tonneau; Sammy kept himself awake by asking questions of Agnes and Neale, so that they could no longer discuss the stealing of Mr. Collinger's automobile, or any other subject of moment.

"If I ever go auto riding again with a kid of his size," growled Neale, at last, "I'll insist on having his question-asker extracted first."

"Huh! What's a 'question-asker,' Neale? Have I got one?" was the query that capped that climax.

The effort to reach a certain old-fashioned hotel on the road to Parmenter Lake, of which Mrs. Heard knew, was successful. Without even a minor mishap Neale brought the car to the Bristow House an hour before sunset and in plenty of time for supper.

As none of the four Corner House girls had ever slept in a hotel before, this was a new experience for them. Mrs. Heard engaged two double rooms for herself and the girls, and a third for Neale and Sammy. Tom Jonah was made comfortable in the stable yard.

The big dining-room was well filled when after they had washed, they went down to supper. The Bristow was popular despite the homely manner in which it was managed.

"Good home cooking," Mrs. Heard said, "and simple ways. These girls who wait on us are all from the neighboring families hereabout. It is not a popular resort with the sporty class of automobilists--although I notice that occasionally one of that kind gets in here."

Her remark was to the point, for at that very moment an example to prove the truth of it was furnished by a big man sitting alone at a small table at the end of the dining room.

"What?" he suddenly bellowed. "I can't get a drink here?"

"Tea, coffee, milk, or soft drinks," the waitress at that table recited, calmly. "The Bristow House is temperance."

The big man got up heavily, his face red, and refused to eat. "That settles it!" he growled. "I'd like to know what you keep a hotel for?"

"To feed people," said the waitress, wearily. She had evidently experienced a like incident before.

"That's Jim Brady!" whispered Agnes, in excitement, to Neale O'Neil.

Neale sat near a window. When the politician from Milton had stamped out, Neale peered around the window blind. The big French car was standing before the hotel.

"But say! that isn't the freckled-faced fellow with him," Agnes declared, peering around the other side of the window frame.

"No. New chauffeur. There they go--aiming for home. Guess he's left Saleratus Joe somewhere."

"I'd just like to know where," sighed Agnes, returning reluctantly to her supper.

By the time supper was over Sammy was again nodding like one of those mechanical figures shop-keepers sometimes put in their show windows to attract attention. Neale had almost to carry him up to the bedroom, and did have to help him undress after he was there.

"Cricky!" ejaculated the flaxen-haired youth, "I didn't start out on this tour with the expectation of nursing along a child, as well as an automobile. I'm going to have a lot of fun myself if I've got to play nursemaid for this kid."

Neale was really good-natured, however, and, for all his scolding, he helped Sammy off with his clothing gently enough. As Ruth had threatened, there was a bath made ready for Sammy, and that rite had to be administered before the sleepy little boy could creep between the sheets.

While Sammy was splashing in the bath a shout of laughter from Neale brought Mrs. Heard and the two older girls to the door of the boys' bedroom.

"What _is_ the matter, Neale O'Neil?" demanded Ruth.

Neale was sitting cross-legged on the floor, rocking himself to and fro, and weak from laughter. "Look what the kid's brought with him in his bag!" gasped the older boy. "I was looking for his night clothes--and something clean for him to put on in the morning. See the mess of stuff I found, will you?"

It was a self-evident fact that Mrs. Pinkney, Sammy's mother, did not pack her little son's suitcase.

Neale had hauled out first of all a tangle of fishing tackle; a baking-powder box, well filled with a supply of squirmy fish-worms, kept moist in black soil that had sifted all over the contents of the bag through the holes in the cover of the box punched to give the worms air. There was Sammy's air-rifle in two sections and a plentiful supply of ammunition; a banana reduced to pulp; a bottle of matches; a sling-shot; a much-rusted bread-knife with its edge patiently ground upon a whetstone--evidently Sammy's idea of a hunting-knife or a bowie-knife.

In addition there was a very grubby-looking pocket-handkerchief in which were tightly tied two slimy garden snails; there was a piece of candy in a soiled paper, with a buffalo nickel imbedded in the confection; two brass wheels out of the works of a clock; last Sunday's lesson paper; two horse-chestnuts; and a pint flask with very suggestive looking contents.

"What?" gasped Mrs. Heard. "That boy carrying liquor?"

"And snails!" ejaculated Agnes.

"Such a mess!" exclaimed Ruth.

"But snails or the worms or anything else there," said the widow, severely, "will not steal away men's brains and make them ill. Where did that boy get whisky--or is it brandy?" she added.

Neale had finally extracted the cork. He first smelled and then tasted the suggestive looking liquor. Mrs. Heard gasped in horror. Agnes squealed. Ruth demanded:

"What is it?"

"It's what I thought!" said Neale. "Licorice water. Wonder the flask didn't break and drench everything with the stuff. And he _has_ brought a few clothes."

"I see very plainly," Mrs. Heard said, when the laughter had subsided, "that the first town we come to of any size, we shall have to buy Sammy some needfuls. Goodness! how ashamed his mother will be when she learns of this."

Sammy was too sleepy to be questioned at that time about the wonderful contents of the suitcase; but in the morning he confessed that after his mother had packed the bag for him, he had been obliged to take out "a lot of useless duds" to make room for the necessary miscellany listed above which, to his boyish mind, was far more important.

However, it afforded the party a hearty laugh and Mrs. Heard (who declared her nephew--the now dignified county surveyor--had been just like Sammy) cheerfully purchased a proper outfit for the lad.

"I knew Sammy would be an awful nuisance," Ruth said.

"But, goodness! isn't he funny?" giggled Agnes.

The party made a good start from the Bristow House about nine o'clock. They were to run that day to Parmenter Lake, where they might spend some time, and to one of the hotels at that resort the trunks had been sent. They expected to have their lunch again in the open, and the hamper had been filled at the Bristow House.

Ever since the day the Corner House girls had first met Mrs. Heard and her brown pony, Jonas, there had been a matter puzzling Tess and Dot; and as time passed and the curiosity of their two active young minds was not satisfied, the children had grown more and more insistent in their demands on Neale O'Neil.

They wished to know what it was Neale had whispered into the fat brown pony's ears when the ex-circus lad had cured the stubborn creature's balkiness--for the time being, at least.

"I've always thought, Neale O'Neil, that you were better than most boys," Tess Kenway said, seriously, the subject having come up again on this morning's run.

"And he never was so stingy before," wailed Dot.

"If he'd only tell me what he said to Jonas," Tess went on, "we could say it to Billy Bumps when he balks. And you know he _does_ balk sometimes--most awfully."

"Oh, Tess! maybe the same words that started the pony wouldn't start a goat. Would they, Neale?" asked the smallest Corner House girl.

But Neale only grinned, and refused to be drawn like a badger. The little girls could not get him to talk at all about the mystery.

And right here, while they were miles from any village--even while they were completely out of sight of any dwelling--a most astonishing thing happened.

Without previous warning the engine began to cough, and the car ran more slowly.

"Now what's happened, Neale?" inquired Mrs. Heard, rather nervously.

Neale made no reply at all for a minute. He tried first one lever and then another, ran slow, tried to speed up, and then found that in spite of everything he did, the engine was going dead.

He managed to get the automobile to the side of the road out of the way of other traffic before the engine entirely ceased to turn.

"Although there doesn't seem to be much traffic of any sort over this road," said Ruth. "We haven't been passed by an auto this morning."

"I should say not!" exclaimed Agnes, promptly. "Our car is no flivver, I'd have you know. Do you expect, Ruth Kenway, to have all the cars in Christendom pass us?"

"It looks now as though some of them might," responded the older girl, laughing at her sister's vehemence.

"I guess you've heard the story of the wealthy man who went out driving in his high-powered French car," remarked Neale, who had tipped back the hood and was looking to see if he could find what was wrong, "and his chauffeur drove too slowly to suit him.

"'This is like a funeral procession,' said the owner to the chauffeur; 'why don't you drive around that flivver in front of us?'

"'No use, boss,' the chauffeur told him.

"'Why not?' demanded the owner.

"'There'll be another flivver ahead of that.'"

"That's all right, Neale O'Neil," put in Agnes, smartly. "Trying to take our attention off the fact that _we're_ not moving ahead very fast, either! What's the matter with it?"

"I--don't--know," confessed the boy.

He tried the starter and got a few feeble turns out of the engine.

"Nothing doing," he grunted.

"Is it something about the wiring?" murmured Agnes.

"Can it be the carburetor?" asked Ruth.

"Maybe something is out of gear underneath the car," suggested Mrs. Heard, briskly. "Don't they always have to get under the car to repair it?"

"Oh, yes!" groaned Neale. "'Get out and get under.' That's the auto-driver's motto." He pulled off his coat preparatory to doing exactly what Mrs. Heard had suggested.

Tess observed gravely:

"Well! _this_ isn't something Neale can whisper to and make go when it balks."

To punctuate the laugh that followed this perfectly serious statement on the part of Tess, Agnes cried:

"Oh, listen! here comes another car."

The rumble of an approaching automobile was then heard by all, and it was coming over the same road they had come. Before it appeared around the nearest turn, they heard the warning "Honk! Honk!" of its horn.

There whisked into sight the next moment the rapidly-gliding automobile. Agnes was standing up to look back. Almost instantly she uttered another cry--this time almost a shriek:

"Oh, Neale!"

"Cricky!" was the boy's gasped rejoinder.

For as the strange car flashed by they had both recognized the man at the steering wheel as Joe Dawson; and the appearance of the fellow beside him was not a whit more confidence-breeding than was Joe's.