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CHAPTER XXIII – ROUGHING IT

Agnes had an excellent opportunity to say “I told you so!” to Neale; but did not even mention to her boy chum the fact that he could not have searched the barn very thoroughly upon his first visit to the place.

For Mr. Collinger’s stolen automobile was there under the hay. By the light of their own automobile lanterns Neale uncovered the runabout and finally hauled it out on the barn floor.

“What do you suppose is the matter with it?” asked Ruth.

“Why, nothing, of course,” cried Mrs. Heard, almost in tears, she was so happy. “Philly will be so delighted.”

“Guess I’d better telegraph to him in the morning when I send for that casting – eh?” said Neale.

“Oh! if you will, Neale,” said the chaperone. “He can come and get the car himself. Oh, dear me! isn’t this just the finest thing that’s happened to us during our tour?”

“It is, indeed, Mrs. Heard,” Ruth agreed.

“And all because of Sammy,” said Neale. “Sammy, you’re some kid.”

“Of course I am,” agreed that irrepressible. “I guess you’re all glad now that I came with you, ain’t you?”

There was nothing bashful about Sammy Pinkney. He demanded and received all the credit due him.

Nor did Agnes and Neale begrudge him the honor – and certainly not Mrs. Heard. The discovery of the stolen car was sufficient to make Mrs. Heard forget their present discomforts; while Neale and Agnes felt that their suspicions of Saleratus Joe and the ugly man had been proved true.

“The Gypsy king told us the exact truth,” Agnes said. “I thought he was an honest man.”

“Of course,” Dot said wonderingly. “Wasn’t he a king, even if he didn’t wear a crown and carry a scalper?”

“And won’t Philly Collinger be glad? Won’t he be glad?” Mrs. Heard cried, over and over again.

Meanwhile Neale was going carefully over the recovered runabout; but he could not examine it thoroughly by lantern-light.

“Of course, it broke down or something,” he said. “Or they wouldn’t have abandoned it here. Just as soon as the farmer came for some of his hay he’d have found the car. Saleratus Joe couldn’t have intended to leave it here for long unless it needed repairing. That is, it doesn’t seem as if he would.”

“He may come back here – he and the ugly man —any time!” whispered Agnes in his ear.

“Sh! nonsense!” commanded Neale. “Anyway, we have Tom Jonah. I’ll give the car a thorough going over when I come back from the railroad to-morrow.”

The excitement occasioned by Sammy’s discovery kept them all awake longer than usual. Besides, camping out in this way had not become familiar enough to the party for them to have become used to it. Only on the night they had remained with Luke and Cecile Shepard had they experienced anything at all like this present situation.

It was agreed by all that they should bed in the hay. With robes and dust-cloths from their car they made themselves very comfortable in the heaped-up, fragrant mass of dried grass at the back of the barn.

“We are ‘bedding down’ just like cattle,” giggled Agnes. “Isn’t it fun?”

It was very comfortable, whether it was fun or not, and they soon went to sleep and slept as heavily as the seven sleepers – whoever they may have been – until daybreak. Tom Jonah lay at the open barn door and kept faithful watch.

Neale was astir first, and he built a fire and made coffee. Agnes smelled the coffee, and soon ran out in her stocking feet with her shoes in her hand.

“Oh, Neale!” she whispered shrilly. “This is the life! Isn’t it just great? I could live this way always. Where do you wash?”

“At the horse-trough,” said the boy.

“Oh-o! I don’t like that,” she objected.

“Dear me!” responded Neale, in a shrill falsetto, and grinning at her. “And you could live this way always!”

“Mean thing!” she retorted. “Folks can be nice if they do live like Gypsies.”

“Or hoboes,” added the boy.

“Well – ”

“Pump fresh water for yourself, of course,” said Neale. “And put on your shoes or you’ll bruise your feet on these pebbles.”

“My, yes! I feel as if I were doing penance,” confessed Agnes, hastening to pull on her shoes.

They had a cozy time drinking the hot coffee and munching crackers before the others were even astir.

“I’ll bring back a lot of grub,” promised Neale.

“And a tube of cold-cream; Ruth and I are all out. And a bottle of witch hazel, and some animal crackers, because the kids like ’em. And some hand lotion for Mrs. Heard – I know her bottle is almost empty. And do get good tea. And don’t forget the stuffed olives – ”

“Hold on,” interposed Neale, beginning to count on his fingers. “Let’s see if I can remember all those. First, a tub of cold cream – ”

“Tube! tube!” cried Agnes.

“Oh! Ah! There is a difference, isn’t there?” he responded, grinning, and named the other articles over with some exactness. “All right. If my memory – and my money – doesn’t give out I’ll bring them all, even if I have to hire a four-horse wagon to cart the stuff.”

He started away at once, and was out of sight before the rest of the party appeared from the barn, yawning but deliciously rested. Sweet-smelling hay for a bed cannot be improved upon.

“Only,” Tess observed, “I don’t feel just right because I haven’t been all undressed. Don’t you s’pose, Ruthie, that we could take turns having a bath in the horse-trough?”

The others laughed at her; and it was agreed that it was not going to be much of a cross, after all, to remain on the abandoned farm for the few days it would be necessary to wait for the new part for the automobile.

Neale O’Neil was two hours in getting to Hickton, for it was a long seven miles and the roads were sandy. And along the way he did not pass a dozen houses, and none of them was very near to the Higgins farm. Still, it was not later than eight o’clock when he sent the telegram to the automobile factory, which was not very far away; and he ordered the new casting sent C. O. D. to the Hickton station.

Then he telegraphed to Mr. Collinger, at Milton, in Mrs. Heard’s name. The surveyor’s aunt had written her message carefully, so that the ordinary reader would not understand just where the stolen car was. Mr. Collinger was to come to Hickton and there inquire for the party of motor car tourists.

There were two stores in sight of the railway station, and in them Neale managed to buy enough food to last his party several days, including eggs and milk and country butter and cheese.

Neale could never have carried all these things back to the farm, but he found a long-legged boy with a rattling wagon drawn by a pony, and bargained with the youth for transportation to the Higgins farm. When the boy learned that a touring party was camped at the site of the burned farmhouse, he was greatly amused.

“Guess old man Higgins don’t know about it, does he?” the lad asked.

“I don’t suppose he does,” admitted Neale. “But we are not doing any harm there.”

“He, he! I reckon yer critters won’t eat up his hay, that’s sure.”

“No. Our motive power feeds on gasoline,” Neale laughed.

“By jinks! I s’pose that’s so. But I’ll drive around to old man Higgins and tell him yer camping there – jest ter see what he’ll say.”

Neale told Mrs. Heard this, and the chaperone decided to send a note to the owner of the place, requesting permission to remain at the abandoned farm and offering to pay for the accommodation if the owner so desired.

The party was quite settled in the camping place by this time.

“We really are Gypsies,” Mrs. Heard said. “And I never in my life saw children so delighted as these of ours are at the present time. Goodness! they will never want to live properly again.”

It was not alone the little folks who fully enjoyed the situation. Ruth found a big, clean galvanized iron pail and proceeded to wash all the clothes that did not need starch and a hot iron. She had filled a long line before Neale returned from Hickton.

After the noon meal Neale went to work on the stolen car. He made an important discovery in a very short time. There was absolutely nothing the matter with Mr. Collinger’s car, though there was no gasoline in the tank!

“I wonder if those fellows found it out before they abandoned it here?” Mrs. Heard queried.

“Well, if they went away just to get some gas for it, they’ve been gone a long time,” giggled Agnes. “But Neale might have saved himself the walk to Hickton if he’d found this out last night.”

“Oh, yes; if the rabbit hadn’t stopped to take a nap he’d have won the race over Mr. Tortoise,” retorted Neale. “We know all about those might-have-beens.”

“But – really – I wonder,” said the chaperone slowly.

“You wonder what, Mrs. Heard?” asked Ruth.

“I wonder what became of those maps and things that Philly was so careful of. If they were in the car – ”

“Then Saleratus Joe got ’em,” said Neale promptly.

“No. I don’t believe the politicians who instigated the robbery have obtained what they hoped to find in this car. I – wonder – where – they – are.”

“Not in the gasoline tank, that’s sure,” said Neale. “I looked in it.”

They all laughed at that, and Mrs. Heard abandoned the puzzling subject.

There was nothing to do of importance but to wait for the message from the automobile factory. Neale tried out the car that had been stolen from Mrs. Heard’s nephew and Mrs. Heard herself enjoyed a ride in it. It was a very good car indeed, and beautifully upholstered.

“I know Philly told me he had this car built according to his own plans, and I’ve wondered since if he didn’t have a place built in it in which to hide his private papers,” Mrs. Heard said. “It would be just like him.”

“Oh! wouldn’t that be great?” cried Agnes.

“And then maybe the maps and things are in the car,” Ruth said.

“Who knows? I am quite confident, because of what my nephew said, that the bundle the thieves got in the car was worthless. I remember his saying: ’Those rascals won’t get what they want unless they tear my car to pieces.’ Now, what could he have meant by that?”

The problem interested the older Corner House girls and Neale very much. Agnes examined the upholstering and the panel-work of the runabout very closely.

“Perhaps Saleratus Joe did find the papers. That’s why the car was abandoned here,” she said to Neale, with a sigh.

“Well, if they found the secret panel,” said the boy, grinning, “they didn’t leave it open so we could find it, did they?”

“You needn’t make fun,” said Agnes. “If I find the papers I won’t tell you – so now!”

“Help yourself,” he returned. “I’m not half so much interested in Mr. Collinger’s affairs as I am in our own car. I hope the factory hustles that casting right along.”

They could not expect it yet, and the remainder of the day was spent in roaming about the farm. The children found the biggest huckleberry pasture any of them had ever seen. Mrs. Heard’s housewifely desires were spurred.

“I do wish these berries were near Milton,” she declared. “I’d can enough of them to last the winter through for huckleberry pies.”

They were getting supper, Gypsy fashion, when the lanky boy with the pony drove up with the answers to the telegrams Neale had sent that morning from the Hickton station.

“Hurrah!” shouted Neale, the moment he read his message. “The thing is already shipped. When does the first train from the south stop at Hickton in the morning?” he asked the messenger.

“Eight-thirty,” was the reply.

“It will be on that. I’ll run over in Mr. Collinger’s car and get it.”

“And Philly says he’ll come up here some time to-morrow, too,” announced Mrs. Heard. “We sha’n’t have to live in a barn but one night more.”

“Oh, say!” drawled the country lad. “Old man Higgins says you kin stay here as long as ye want to, if ye don’t burn up the rest o’ the buildings.”

CHAPTER XXIV – SOMETHING REALLY EXCITING

A very red-faced sun awoke the touring party the next morning, his first rays shooting directly into the broad doorway of the barn – an intruder that Tom Jonah, faithful watchman as he was, could not keep out. The sunshine shone directly into the eyes of the Corner House girls and their friends.

All were quickly astir. They expected to be on their way again before night; and although roughing it had been fun, there were some drawbacks to it.

“We’ll sleep in regular beds again to-night,” Agnes said, with some satisfaction.

“But I don’t believe it will be half so nice,” Tess observed. “This hay is so sweet and smelly.”

“Now, Sammy Pinkney!” cried Dot, suddenly spying that youngster in mischief, “don’t pull that nice pussy’s tail. It hurts her.”

“Ain’t pulling her tail,” replied Sammy promptly. “I’m only holding her tail. The cat’s doing all the pulling.”

Agnes bore down upon him and he immediately ceased holding poor pussy’s tail.

“Say! you’re awful particular,” complained the boy. “I wasn’t really hurting the old cat, Aggie. And – and it ain’t polite to always be interferin’ with a feller.”

“Now you’ve got it, Aggie,” chuckled Neale O’Neil. “You see you’re not polite. And politeness costs nothing.”

“Oh! doesn’t it?” returned Agnes. “Suppose you’d put ‘very respectfully yours’ at the end of that telegram you sent to the auto factory? I guess you’d have found it cost something.”

“Stung again!” admitted Neale.

“Why, what is all this I hear?” demanded Ruth, coming up from the horse trough pump bearing a brimming pail of water. “Did somebody get out of bed on the wrong side this bright and beautiful morning?”

“It was the cat,” said Neale, in a sepulchral voice. “She started it.”

“Which side is the wrong side of a hay-mow bed, Ruthie?” Tess asked.

“That’s a poser,” Neale said. “You’ll have to ask somebody else about that, eh, Ruth? Now, hustle along the breakfast, you girls, for I must start for Hickton.”

“And I’m going with you, Neale,” Agnes declared. “You can speed up that runabout as fast as you want to. The others won’t be along to object.”

This last remark she whispered in Neale’s ear.

“I tell you, Aggie, you’re a speed maniac,” responded Neale. “But if Mrs. Heard says you may go off alone with me, all right.”

Agnes had learned by this time to wheedle the good-natured chaperone into agreeing to almost anything the girls desired; and of course she had no objection to Agnes’ going anywhere with Neale. Whether the Corner House girls realized it or not, they could not have had a brother any more careful for them or better to them than Neale O’Neil.

So the girl and boy chums were on the road in the runabout soon after eight. Mr. Collinger’s was a good machine, and it ran smoothly. But Agnes suddenly had an unhappy thought.

“Oh, Neale!” she said, clasping her hands.

“Shoot!” advised the boy, with his eyes on the road ahead.

“We’re riding in a stolen car.”

“Sure we are. What of it?”

“And all the constables and sheriffs and policemen all over the State have the description of this car and her license number. What are you going to do if an officer holds us up?”

“Cracky! never thought of it,” admitted the boy. “I expect they’ll jail us.”

“Horrid thing! But we may have an unpleasant time explaining it.”

“Well, let us hope nothing like that occurs,” he said; but Agnes was troubled by the possibility of arrest all the way to the station and back again.

The casting was waiting for them and Neale paid the expressman and then the runabout was headed for the Higgins farm. As Neale and Agnes came in view of the farm buildings none of their party was in sight; but coming across a distant field were two men who seemed to be carrying something heavy between them.

“First natives we’ve seen wandering around here,” Neale observed. “And where are the folks?”

“All gone berrying,” Agnes replied. “They said they were going to fill every receptacle we have before leaving the Higgins place. I never did see so many berries.”

Neale ran the runabout up to the barn, but did not drive it inside. The big doors had been closed and their own car stood within on the barn floor, but out of sight.

“Let’s go berrying too, just as soon as I slip this thing into place,” Neale suggested.

Although the broken casting had caused so much trouble, it did not take five minutes to put the new one into place. He tried the engine, and everything worked well.

“All right,” he announced, coming out of the small door of the barn again. “Shall we chase over after the others?”

“Yes. And tell them it’s all right. We can start off any time now,” Agnes said.

“Hullo! I guess we’ll have to wait for Mr. Collinger to show up for his car.”

“Oh, dear me, yes. I did not think of that,” Agnes returned. “I – I wish Mrs. Heard hadn’t telegraphed for him. Then we could have driven his car to Milton with ours too. I could have driven it.”

“No license, Aggie,” said Neale. “You can’t drive a car. Say! did you see that?”

“See what, Neale?” she asked him, looking all around.

“I thought I saw a man slip behind that far shed.”

“Why! what’s become of those two men we saw crossing the field yonder?” demanded the girl, with interest.

“Oh, they must have reached the road by this time,” and Neale went on again. “I guess we needn’t bother about them.”

But after a moment he said, in a puzzled tone: “That fellow dodged behind the shed as though he did not want to be seen. Funny – ”

“They might steal some of our things,” Agnes said. “We ought not to leave the place unguarded. Come on back, Neale.”

“Well – maybe you are right,” admitted the boy. “Though probably they are harmless folks.”

“They could steal the automobiles,” declared Agnes.

“Now, don’t work yourself up into a conniption fit,” chuckled Neale. “You think everybody you see is an automobile thief.”

“Oh! what’s that?”

The sudden sputtering of an engine was audible. Somebody was trying the starter of the runabout they had left standing in the shade before the barn.

“Fooling with it, of course!” muttered Neale, starting to run.

“They are stealing it!” whispered Agnes, determined to believe the worst.

It seemed as though, on this occasion, Agnes was right. As they dashed around the corner of the stable and reached the open yard, the runabout began to “chug-chug” regularly, and they saw it being steered out of the Higgins premises.

“Hey, there! Stop!” yelled Neale.

“Oh, Neale!” wailed Agnes. “It’s that Saleratus Joe and the ugly man.”

She was correct. The freckled-faced fellow who had been Mr. Jim Brady’s chauffeur was driving the re-stolen automobile, while the ugly man sat beside him. The latter turned around and laughed at the excited boy and girl as the runabout swerved into the road and took the direction of the railroad at a fast clip.

“Oh, dear me! what will Mrs. Heard say?” gasped Agnes.

“What will Mr. Collinger say? That’s more to the point,” growled Neale. “Who would have thought that those fellows were around here? And there’s the can they brought with them. Gasoline, of course. They didn’t have to use it, for the tank of the runabout is nearly full.”

“What shall we do, Neale?” cried Agnes.

Neale was practical, when once he recovered from his first amazement. He dashed into the barn and swung open the big doors.

“They didn’t see our car,” he cried. “And let me tell you they can’t get away from it. I can drive our car much faster than they can run that little one – believe me!”

He tried the starter, glanced into the gas tank, and then got in behind the steering wheel.

“Well, Neale O’Neil!” cried Agnes. “You’re not going alone – not much!”

As the car started she swung herself aboard. Neale said, hastily:

“I don’t know about your going with me, Aggie. There may be trouble – ”

“I don’t care. I’m going,” she said, with determination. “I wouldn’t miss this for a farm!”

“Hang on!” he cried, as the big car rumbled out of the barn.

The mechanism worked all right, and when they turned into the road the stolen motor car was not yet out of sight.

“And we won’t let it get out of sight,” Neale declared. “I just wish we’d run into that Sheriff Keech again. But he lives a long way from here.”

“Why, Neale!” laughed his girl companion, “he isn’t even sheriff over here. Don’t you remember that we’re in another county now?”

“Cracky! I’d forgotten that. Well, we’ve got no pull with the officers of the law in this county, perhaps; but neither has Saleratus Joe. I’m going to hang right to those fellows until there’s a chance of getting them arrested.”

For once Agnes was satisfied with the speed of the car. It roared along the road, jolting over the uneven spots, thundering over a wooden bridge which spanned a creek, finally shooting into the main highway to the railroad station, not a hundred yards behind the stolen car.

By this time the ugly man, who often looked around, was not laughing at the Corner House girl and her companion. Without doubt Saleratus Joe was driving the runabout at top speed; but the small car did not have the powerful engine that had been built into the larger car.

They passed nobody on the road – no vehicle at least. And that was a good thing, too; for almost any horse would have been frightened by the onrush of the two cars.

“What do you suppose they mean to do? Where are they going?” shouted Agnes in Neale’s ear.

“I haven’t the least idea,” returned the boy. “But I know what I’m going to do.”

“What is that?” she asked.

“Hang to ’em! Hang just like a bulldog to a tramp’s coat-tail,” declared Neale O’Neil.

At that moment the little station at Hickton came into sight. There were two men, talking excitedly, standing directly in the middle of the highway, and, when they sighted these two men, the thieves in the runabout slowed down.