Chapter XXII: Sammy Investigates

It was a lovely afternoon, and there were still two or three hours before sunset. The intention had been merely to stop at the abandoned Higgins farm to satisfy Agnes' desire to make another search of the premises for the lost motor car.

"I believe you wanted to look down the well to see if it was there," Neale remarked, grumpily. "Well! you've time enough to do it."

"Oh, Neale! don't be nasty," said his girl chum. "I'm sorry if the old car is going to make you trouble----"

"_Us_ trouble, I should say," Ruth said, rather sharply. "Do you realize that we are an unconscionable long way from civilization?"

"Well, don't let us become savage, if the wilderness is," said Mrs. Heard, recovering her own good temper. "Of course, Neale, you don't know just what the matter is with the machine?"

"Not yet; but I'm going to find out," he returned, hauling his overalls and jumper out of the tool-box.

"And us," cried Dot. "Let's look around for the place where we're going to camp. Why! we'll be just like the Gypsies again."

"My goodness!" groaned Mrs. Heard. "That child is uncanny. Does she _know_ that we are going to be marooned here all night? And not a soul in sight!"

"We got something to eat," said Sammy, who had investigated. "I'll get the fire ready to light. Neale won't let me have matches."

"I'm sure we could clean out one of those small houses, and make it nice and comfortable for us to live in," said Tess, falling in with the idea with enthusiasm.

"Me for the hay!" cried Agnes, running up to the barn door. "We'll sleep in the hay!"

"Remember the rats!" hissed Neale, as he crept under the car with a hammer and a collection of wrenches.

"Mean thing!" cried Agnes. "I won't believe there _are_ such things, so now!"

When she opened the small barn door, however, she had a fright right at the start. Something whisked out at her feet, and Agnes leaped aside with a scream.

"Oh! it's a pussy-cat," cried Dot delightedly. "Then somebody _does_ live here!"

It was a beautiful blue Maltese cat, and although she was a little wild at first, she must have been used to children when the farmer lived here, for Dot and Tess soon coaxed her to come to be petted.

"Anyway," Agnes said, "I'm not going to worry about rats with a fine puss like her around. _She_ can handle the rats."

"Sure. She eats 'em alive," called Neale from beneath the car.

Agnes went inside and struggled with the bar of the big barn door. Sammy finally went to her assistance and they swung the doors open so that the sunlight might flood the interior. Nothing seemed to be changed since Neale had made his search more than two weeks before.

Mrs. Heard and Ruth were wandering about the premises, looking into the other outbuildings. The stable was empty, of course. There was no stock on the place. But on the other side of the ruins of the burned dwelling they made quite an important discovery.

There was a fenced-in garden patch. It was weed-grown for the most part; but there were berry bushes loaded with dew-berries and raspberries, both black and red; besides ripening gooseberries and currants. Here was a feast for the children, and Ruth was about to call them when Mrs. Heard said:

"Wait. If we should have to remain to-night, this fruit will help out for supper and breakfast. We have plenty of sugar and canned evaporated milk."

"Goodness me, Mrs. Heard! Don't talk so perfectly recklessly!" Ruth exclaimed. "It can't be that we shall have to remain here. Why, we _can't_!"

"What are you going to do--walk to the next town?" asked Agnes, who came to them in time to overhear this statement of her sister's.

"Where is the next town?" asked Mrs. Heard quickly.

"Just sixteen miles away by the map--and fourteen at least as the crow flies," Agnes said promptly.

"And we're not crows," murmured Ruth.

"We can never walk fourteen miles--or more," Mrs. Heard said, with conviction. "Where is the nearest house?"

"Goodness only knows. There is no other farm on this road--we know that. And I don't remember seeing any very near to where we turned into it at either end, do you?" said Agnes.

"No, I don't," Ruth admitted, shaking her head. "We _are_ in a fix if Neale can't repair the car himself--and quickly."

"Don't say anything to him," begged Agnes. "He's as cross as a bear with a sore head."

Meanwhile Mrs. Heard and the two girls were approaching the automobile.

"Ouch!" grunted Neale from under the car, and Agnes giggled.

"Now he's bumped his poor head again, and it's sorer than ever."

They waited for the final verdict--Mrs. Heard in a serious mind if the girls were not. Finally Neale backed out from beneath the machine. He held a casting in his hand, and it was so badly cracked that, when he pressed the halves apart, it broke in two pieces.

"There's the blamed thing!" he pronounced, with scowling emphasis.

"Sh!" exclaimed Ruth. "Don't use such language. Can't it be fixed?"

"Oh, yes. They grow these things on bushes right out yonder in the fields. All I've got to do is to go and pick one that fits this breed of car. Oh, yes!" retorted Neale O'Neil.

"It is tragic!" gasped Mrs. Heard.

"Then we surely will have to stay here to-night," said Agnes, and she did not sound as though the prospect worried her much.

"And to-morrow night--and the next night--and for several more, if you ask me," growled Neale. "That is, unless I can get a wagon and drive you all to the nearest railroad station, and send you back to Milton."

"_Nev-air_!" cried Agnes. "Let you stay here and have all the fun? Stingy!"

"My goodness, child," murmured the chaperone. "What do you call fun?"

"At least, it would be a novel experience," Ruth admitted.

"You, too?" gasped Mrs. Heard. "I thought _you_ had better sense, Ruth Kenway."

"Well--I haven't," admitted the oldest Corner House girl, smiling. "How are you going to get the thing repaired, Neale?"

"Wire to the makers. Take two or three days to get the new casting. And we can't run a yard without it."

"Where will you send your telegram from?" Ruth asked.

"From the flag station--Hickton--and that's seven miles away. I'll have to walk it unless I find some one to drive me there."

"Oh, Neale! To-night?" cried Agnes.

"No. Couldn't get to the station before it was closed, anyway. I'll make an early start. That is, unless you want me to hike right out now and find a farmer who will cart you all to some place where you can get regular beds."

"Oh, no!" cried Agnes, again. "You sha'n't have all the fun, Neale."

"No-o, Neale," said Ruth, more slowly. "I think it will be possible for us all to stay here with you. The weather is so nice."

"Oh, let's stay! Let's stay!" cried the three juveniles in chorus, and even Tom Jonah, becoming excited too, barked his approval.

"Well, what can I do," Mrs. Heard demanded, "with every one against me?"

So it was agreed to stay. First of all, Neale declared the car must be got into the barn, for it might rain; and then, it did not look well to have the automobile standing out in the open road.

"I'd like to know who you suppose is going to see it here?" demanded Agnes, with a sniff. "I don't believe anybody ever drives through this road more than once a month--or unless there is a funeral in the family!"

"Maybe Saleratus Joe and that other fellow will be driving through in Mr. Collinger's runabout," said Neale slyly.

"Oh, if they only would!" gasped Agnes.

"A fat chance!" returned Neale. "And what if they did? Would you hold 'em up the way that imitation constable did us, and take the car away from them?"

"I don't know what I'd do," said Agnes. "But I'd do something."

Meanwhile the boy rummaged around in the barn and found a set of blocks and the necessary tackle. This he rigged to a beam inside the barn and carried the rope to the car at the foot of the sloping driveway.

With the purchase this arrangement gave them, the young folks all "tailed" on to the rope like sailors and managed to drag the automobile into the barn; but they were more than an hour and a half at the work, and it was growing dark when they finished.

Meanwhile nobody had appeared to forbid their camping on the Higgins premises. A fire had been built in the open and the tripod set up. Mrs. Heard tucked up her skirts and grilled bacon (and her face) at the fire. There were eggs, too, and canned tongue and biscuits and plenty of fruit. They all thought it great fun.

After supper, as it was still too early for bed, the three children entered into a boisterous game of hide-and-go-seek. Sammy, burrowing in the great heap of hay at the rear of the barn floor, suddenly lost his interest in the game. He dragged something out of the hay and brought it to Neale, who sat on the sill of the big door with pad and pencil, composing the telegram he intended to send to the automobile manufacturers from Hickton the next morning.

"What's that you have, Sammy P.?" demanded Agnes, as the little fellow, too excited to speak, put the object in Neale's hands.

"Great cracky!" ejaculated Neale O'Neil. "Where did you get it?"

"Under the hay. There's something there. I broke the wire that held it--see?" said Sammy, excitedly.

"A license plate!" gasped Agnes.

"State license number! What do you know about that? Ask Mrs. Heard----"

Agnes was away like the wind. Mrs. Heard and Ruth were washing dishes at the horse trough. The girl brought the chaperone in a hurry.

"What was Mr. Collinger's license number, do you know?" Neale asked her. "I mean his automobile license number."

"The license number is twenty-four hundred and thirty-two. Goodness! I ought to remember it."

Neale stood up with the license plate in his hand. "We've found the car, sure as you live!" he said, with conviction.