Auto Boys' Vacation Read online

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  "RAH! RAH! RAH! RAH!" SCREAMED PAUL JONES IN THE MOSTEXTRAVAGANT DELIGHT IMAGINABLE.]

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  THE AUTO BOYS' VACATION

  By James A. Braden

  AUTHOR OF "THE AUTO BOYS," "THE AUTO BOYS' OUTING," "THE AUTO BOYS' QUEST," "FAR PAST THE FRONTIER," "CONNECTICUT BOYS IN THE WESTERN RESERVE," ETC.

  ILLUSTRATED BY E. A. FURMAN

  THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY CHICAGO--AKRON, OHIO--NEW YORK

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  COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY

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  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER PAGE I Again the Lonely South Fork Road 1 II The Search Is Continued 13 III Mr. Billy Worth Does Some Thinking 27 IV Detective Bob Rack Has Something to Say 43 V A Bit of Advice From a Stranger 59 VI A Little Kindness and What Came of It 71 VII A Swift Ride Through the Darkness 85 VIII In Most Excellent Good Season 103 IX The Detective's Strange Story 111 X Eastward Ho! 127 XI Passing the Load of Hay 143 XII Nan and the Jersey Bull 163 XIII The Kidnapers 183 XIV Under the Car 199 XV At the Old Tavern 219 XVI Conclusion 239

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  THE AUTO BOYS' VACATION

  CHAPTER I

  AGAIN THE LONELY SOUTH FORK ROAD

  "You can't hide anything from the chief," observed Willie Creek, whenChief Fobes had left his garage, the scene of the mystery related in_The Auto Boys' Big Six_.

  "Well, he didn't seem to be a whole lot interested to find out who brokein here--who killed our dog," replied Billy Worth, severely.

  "You don't _know_ him," returned Mr. Creek. "You just show him thefellow that done the deed and he'll arrest him mighty quick."

  "Maybe if we'd see a man robbing a bank here, then called Fobes so hecould see, too, that the man _was_ robbing the bank, he'd do something,"remarked Billy, as the lads returned to the hotel.

  "I'll tell you what _he'd_ do," growled Paul Jones. "He'd say--'now fromthe standpoint of the law, maybe that man is going to commit a crime.From the standpoint of the law, he better go a little careful or I'lltell his mother on him.'"

  All of which might be taken to indicate that Chief Fobes was not asgreat a man in the minds of the four boys as he was in his own. Still,something might be said on both sides of this subject, quite as Phil Waynow remarked, but the conversation was abruptly dropped.

  "No news yet?" asked Mr. Wagg. The lads had just reached the hotelagain.

  "None of the car, but--" and then they told the landlord of the killingof Scottie. Confidentially they intimated their belief that John Smithor "Pickem" might know something of the affair.

  "Very strange," mused Mr. Wagg. "He checked out--paid his bill andleft--last night. He said he was leaving on the ten o'clock train east.Seemed put out because the party he had been expecting in to see him hadnot come. But he left no word--no address for mail, or anything."

  The hotel proprietor was not at all pleased with the indifference ofChief Fobes. The boys had told him of all that took place at the garage."Yet of course," said he, "it might make a difference if you lived here.There'd be quite a little expense to find out who killed the dog and,besides, the thieves, if it was thieves who did it, didn't get anything.It doesn't seem to me, now really, that this new trouble has anything todo with your lost automobile, and I take it that that's the main thing,after all."

  To this the boys agreed and, eager to put into execution Phil's plan totelephone to all the larger cities east and west, to get some trace ofthe Big Six, if possible, they started for the telephone office.

  "But we can't all telephone," said Phil. "Who will look after buryingScottie? And who will go to Ferndale in the Torpedo and take back thepick and shovel to the blacksmith? Even if he did say we might have themas long as we liked, they should be toted home to-day."

  Billy and Paul volunteered for the work mentioned. With the cold, stiffbody of poor Scottie covered over with muslin in the tonneau, theystarted the stray automobile again toward the lonely South Fork andFerndale. Where the dog's burial place should be had been a problem.Willie Creek suggested a wooded knoll where some evergreens grew, notfar beyond the branching of the road. This place the two boys reached indue time. It seemed to be quite what they sought.

  Overhead the always green branches would sing a gentle requiem in thebreeze the whole year through. The thick, emerald foliage would protectthe little grave below, both from the violence of winter's storms andthe heat of the summer sun.

  The solemn task was not a pleasant one. They wrapped the clean, newmuslin around the body that in life had been so lithe, so strong, soactive and so handsome, and gently placed it in the soft, cool ground.After the beautiful custom of the Grand Army of the Republic they putbits of evergreen in the grave, in token of unceasing remembrance oftheir dead comrade. Slowly they filled in the earth.

  "We'll come back some day--some day when we've at last got out of thisawful ocean of bad luck we seem to be in, and we'll put up a littlestone to mark the grave," said Billy. "If ever a dog deserved it,Scottie does. I only wish we knew to whom he rightly belonged before Mr.Knight ever saw him. They'd like to hear, I think, that he was a hero,whether they cast him off or not, or even if he was a runaway."

  Going on toward Ferndale, the little town two or three miles beyondwhere the Big Six was ditched, Billy and Paul again deeply felt thelonely influence of the unfrequented road. Even in the bright sunshinethe old mill-pond, the mill, the big, empty icehouse, the weepingwillows near them--all seemed to tell of that dreadful tragedy of manyyears ago. The boys both noticed as they passed how the road's banksloped down, and their active imaginations plainly pictured thefrightened horses, the overturned carriage and the flood of the great,dark pond closing over the young man and his mother, whose sad storyWillie Creek had told them.

  Farther on, at the spot where all their own troubles had had theirbeginning, the two lads stopped. Filled with vain regrets they lookedagain all about the place where the Six went down. But if they expectedto make any new discovery, they were disappointed. The road was dry now.The broken fence rails still lay at the foot of the embankment. Thetrampled grass and weeds still told of what had happened, but no one hadbeen near; no human creature, it was to be believed, had visited thescene since the boys last saw it.

  Returning to their car, the friends soon reached the house where theyhad stopped to make inquiry that first day of their trouble--the housewhere lived the lonely, old man, all his thoughts in the days of longago. They now knew the story of the faded dwelling, the crumblingcondition of every structure. Curiously they glanced about, thinkingthey might see the lonely, old gentleman and give him a friendlysalute--just a hand thrown up for an instant--as they passed.

  Ah, there he was! Seated in the kitchen doorway, he saw the machine evenbefore Paul and Billy saw him. Their wave of a hand seemed to pleasehim, and he waved a beckoning signal in return. Billy jumped down andwalked up to see if something was wanted.

  "No, no!" the old man replied, far more pleasantly than at that form
ertime. He meant only to acknowledge their greeting, he said. Then heasked if the owner of the runaway car had been found.

  This led Billy to tell all about the misfortune that had followed thepicking up of the strange automobile. The farmer ruefully shook hishead. There were many days together that no vehicle went along thisroad, in these latter years, he said. He could hardly understand how sostrange a thing should happen almost at his door. And he had beendisturbed in other ways. Only last night, as he sat in the kitchen door,he had seen a crouching figure in the moonlight slip from one tree toanother. It was after midnight. Visitors he little expected to have atany time, much less at such an hour. So he called out, "Hello, there!"The figure hastened away and he saw it no more.

  "It fretted me some," said the old gentleman slowly, "but I didn't seeanything more, clean to daylight."

  Somehow the picture of the aged, unhappy man sitting all night in thekitchen door, as his imagination presented it, touched Billy'ssympathies deeply. He asked if Mr. Peek would not like to take a littleride in the car to Ferndale. They were coming back at once. It wouldtake but a little while, he urged.

  With something more like a smile than had been seen on his face for manya year, the old man said he never had ridden in an automobile, and wouldbe glad to go. He climbed up to the front seat beside Paul. Billy toldhim it was the more comfortable place to ride. And plainly Mr. Peekenjoyed the trip. He was quite silent but his deep, pain-marked eyeslighted up noticeably.

  "It's a grand thing to be young," said he, at last.

  Neither blacksmith nor storekeeper at Ferndale had heard the slightestinquiry for the runaway automobile, which was not a runaway at all atthe time it passed through that village the previous Friday. Nor hadthey heard anything which might cast light upon the theft of the BigSix.

  "You'll find that whoever had this Torpedo car is the same party thathooked your machine," said the blacksmith. "Stands to reason. Wherevercould he have disappeared to, if it ain't so?"

  "I'm afraid you're on the wrong track," smiled Billy, a little sadly."Chief Fobes, at Griffin, says positively that the two things--this lostmachine on the one hand, and the stealing of our car on the other--haveno connection with each other."

  "Matter of opinion!" spoke the blacksmith warmly. And then as if hescarcely endorsed Willie Creek's high opinion of Mr. Fobes' ability, headded: "And I'll put my judgment against his'n any day."

  Arranging with their friends to telephone them at the American Houseimmediately should there be any development at Ferndale concerningeither car, the two boys turned toward Griffin. They stopped at hislonely, cheerless home to leave Mr. Peek. His thankful appreciation ofthe ride made them glad of the little kindness they had been able toshow him. Neither lad thought to attach importance to the old man'saccount of his being disturbed by prowlers. It was Phil who sawsignificance in this story as, at dinner, Billy and Paul told all thathad taken place with them.

  "It's a mighty mysterious business," declared Way. "Don't you see it?Here's an automobile,--quite likely a stolen automobile, atthat--abandoned and left to run itself on a lonely road. No one candiscover what became of the driver of that car. He was certainly drivingwhen the machine left Ferndale. Three miles further on, and near the oldPeek place, he is missing. Now isn't it likely that the same man isstill sneaking around in that neighborhood?"

  "Well, anyhow, we're getting off the main track again," Billy returned."We'd like to know where the Torpedo belongs, but it's a heap moreimportant that we keep on the trail of our own machine."

  "Yes, that's so," Phil soberly assented. "It's certainly strange thatall my telephoning went for nothing. The police and all the big garagesfrom Albany to Buffalo, I should say, have a description of our car, andyet not a sign of her has been discovered any place."

  "There's a long distance telephone call for Mr. Way," announced thevoice of Mr. Wagg, the landlord.