ON TO THE GOLD CUP RACES
"Yes, sir, they have went. I don't know nothing else about it," spoke
the young fellow employed as general utility man in Knight & Wilder's
garage. His principal work consisted of polishing metal and pumping up
tires, but laboring under an impression that he was an automobile
salesman, he put on very swaggering airs. Just now he affected scarcely
to notice three boys who made inquiry concerning the proposed tour of
Phil Way and his friends.
Mr. Knight, coming up at the moment, told the important young gentleman
in an undertone that his deportment in the establishment was not that of
publicity. Such being the case, he sent the youth to gather up some
tools which a touring party had borrowed and left lying on the curb, as
was certainly very good of them and very honest.
Then Mr. Knight quizzed the three lads, who were none other than Gaines,
Pickton and Perth. It appeared, he said, with a sly smile, that Phil Way
and his party had gone away on a trip. Then he asked them about their
own plans, but they knew his friendliness toward the four chums too well
to divulge a great deal. Still, they could not help showing the chagrin
they felt upon learning that the Auto Boys had really departed the
preceding day.
Seeing their ill-humor in the matter the senior partner of the
establishment made various remarks to the effect that none but the most
active and alert individuals could expect to cope successfully with such
clever chaps as Billy Worth, Phil Way, MacLester and Jones. Indeed, he
was of the opinion, he said, that no one--referring to no person in
particular, of course--but in general, _no one_,--need feel disturbed if
Phil Way and his crowd of fellows did get ahead of him or them; because
Phil and Billy and the others were really exceptionally able men,--in
fact, quite out of the ordinary with regard to intelligence and good
judgment.
The whole effect of Mr. Knight's discourse, as he no doubt intended, was
to make Gaines really sour, Pickton's vanity decidedly ruffled and
Freddy Perth deeply humiliated, sick at heart and ready to admit that he
was no match for such fellows as Way had gathered about him.
"Oh, come on!" growled Pick, at last, and when a half minute later the
three were again in Gaines' Roadster at the curb outside, he slammed in
the clutch so violently that Soapy just escaped being thrown out. To the
Automobile Club, to the Park Garage,--to all places they considered in
the remotest degree likely to afford information of the direction the
Auto Boys had taken, the Trio went.
With furious impatience but still vainly, they hustled from one end of
the city to another. Repeatedly they drove past Dr. Way's residence, as
if to make sure, time after time, that none of the four friends was
about the green and yellow shed. All they could learn was that the chums
had driven away, their car laden as if they meant to go to the Pacific
Coast, at least, the preceding afternoon.
"I _thought_ it was funny that only Way and Jones went to the ball game.
And they did it just for a blind, too!" said Pickton grimly.
"You thought nothing of the kind!" growled Gaines. "Least if you did,
it's a fine time to be telling it!"
"Well, I guess they haven't seen the last of us yet, anyway, eh?" Pick
answered in that way in which he so often knuckled to Soapy's humor,
leading that young gentleman on to do the thing he himself most wished
to do.
"I should rather _guess_ they hadn't," Gaines responded, as if the idea
of pursuit were wholly his own,--"I'll show 'em a trick or two yet."
"The first thing is to find out where they are; at least, which way they
went," put in Perth, quietly.
Gaines turned on him angrily. "What's that got to do with it? You leave
that to me!" he said.
And while it would appear that the information Fred mentioned was, under
all the circumstances, quite essential and really did have quite a great
deal to do with the case, that young gentleman made only a wry face in
answer. Soapy did not see him. Quite possibly Perth did not intend that
he should.
In fruitless running from place to place the three boys spent the day.
Repeatedly were they on the verge of falling out with one another
completely. Only because Pickton bore Gaines' insolence in silence, or
turned it aside by some flattering or cajoling remark, did these two get
on at all in this time of trouble and disappointment,--the sort of time
that really measures friendships and motives.
Perth was content to have little to say, usually accepting the
suggestions and remarks of the others without comment. He drove the car,
for the most part, and as he liked it very much, earnestly hoped the
proposed long trip following after the Auto Boys would not be abandoned.
Wednesday came and the Trio, glum and despondent, talked a great deal,
again came very near to serious quarreling, and achieved nothing. And
now the objects of their chiefest interest and the cause of their
chagrin were two days upon their way. But whither?
"'Three stones piled on top of each other to mark the place,'" mused
Pickton over and over again. "They _think_ they have something great in
sight, but I'll bet they don't know exactly what, any more than we do.
And they think they're so plagued smart! We've just _got_ to take some
of the conceit out of 'em."
"That's what!" Soapy Gaines asserted, but rather dubiously.
"Might as well talk in our sleep, for all the good just talk's doing,"
Perth was moved at last to say with some asperity; and his views would
appear to be not far wrong. However, he was called a pessimist, or some
other word amounting to the same thing, by Pickton, while Soapy insisted
quite violently, "You leave that to me."
The fact that the Auto Boys had disappeared almost as if by magic and at
a time when their machine was supposed to be indefinitely laid up for
repairs, Pickton and Gaines were obliged reluctantly to admit.
That their intention of following after the chums looked more and more
ridiculous as the hours passed, and they had no notion whatever as to
the direction they should take, was something of which they did not care
to be reminded. Yet it is likely that for want of any clue whatever, and
their inability to find one,--for none of the three was particularly
resourceful,--the Chosen Ones would have been forced to abandon their
scheme at last, but for the merest chance by which some valuable
information came to them.
Early on Thursday Freddy Perth sat looking over the morning paper while
Soapy and Pick were starting a fresh discussion of the necessity of
taking some of the conceit out of someone, needless to mention whom. The
three were on the lawn at Perth's home. The Roadster stood at the curb.
MARSHAL MIRED
SAGERSGROVE OFFICIAL PULLED OUT OF SWAMP BY YOUTHS HE PURSUED.
The foregoing headlines came to Fred's notice as he tried to read while
still following the conversation of his two friends, thread-bare though
their subject now assuredly was. Half mechanically at first, then with
lively interest he noted the following:
"Sagersgrove, June--In a light automobile in which they had set out
to overtake and arrest four youthful tourists from Lannington who
passed through Sagersgrove yesterday, Marshal Wellock and Eli
Gouger, the latter a self-appointed detective, plunged over a bank
into Cowslip marshes west of here last night. Both were buried to
their necks in mire.
"The locality is practically a wilderness and the automobile would
have settled beyond recovery in the swamp but for the merest
accident of assistance being quickly obtained. The touring party
the officers were after had encamped on a ridge of high land a
half-mile beyond and responded to the cries for aid. Wellock and
Gouger were able to drag themselves out of the marsh and the car of
the tourists pulled their automobile out when only the seat
remained above mud. Marshal Wellock was saved the necessity of
arresting his rescuers for it developed that his suspicion that the
youths had stolen their car was unfounded. The four strangers had
themselves taken the marsh road by mistake. They were piloted to
the State pike by the officers."
Having read this interesting item through twice, the second time very
slowly and thoughtfully, Freddy Perth again listened to the conversation
of Pickton and Gaines. They still discussed the possible whereabouts of
the Auto Boys.
"Seems likely to me that they may have gone west,--away out through
Sagersgrove and beyond," observed young Mr. Perth, after a minute or
two, a self-complacent twinkle in his eye.
"About as likely as a muley cow having horns, eh, Gaines?" Pick
answered.
"Or a--or a dog or anybody else having 'em," Soapy responded, lamely.
"Well, of course I never did know anything about it, and of course you
two _do_ know all about it. Still, when you get through with all this
stuff you've said over and over ever since Tuesday, till honestly I'm
sick of hearing it, just read that!"--and Perth held out the newspaper,
his finger indicating the important item. There was triumph unlimited in
his manner.
"Aw, let's see!" growled Pickton, doubtingly. Perth's self-satisfied
smile irritated him. He took the paper and, Soapy peering over his
shoulder, both read the item through.
"Humph! May be them and it may not," was Pick's comment.
"Don't be a hogshead! It's them all right," Gaines answered brusquely.
"Why, they're two hundred miles away by this time!"
"Yes, sir! And they're headed for the Gold Cup road races at
Queensville," put in Perth, quickly. "That's just where that old State
pike goes. I remember seeing the map!"
Reluctantly Pickton admitted that the tourists mentioned in the
newspaper dispatch must be Phil Way's party. Inwardly he denounced his
luck that he himself had not been first to discover the news.
Reluctantly, too, he admitted that the four chums were apparently headed
for the Gold Cup automobile races,--a series of road contests over a
twenty-six mile course, scheduled for Saturday of the following week.
However,--"Don't see, though, what that mystery of the 'three stones
piled up to mark the place,' that they seem to make so much of, has to
do with races," he persisted.
"Maybe they're going to have a lunch stand at the track. Maybe they
rented space for it by mail and had three stones piled up so's they'd
know their place when they got there. Just like that bunch, figuring to
earn some money!"
This thought, advanced by Soapy, really did that young gentleman credit,
he so rarely had an idea of his own. And although Pick declared as
boldly as he felt prudent, that the three stones he had heard mentioned
so mysteriously had been placed one upon another long years before,
which fact he had also heard stated, the former insisted that his own
notion of the matter was correct.
While in no sense agreeing as to this, Pickton, for reasons of his own,
carried the discussion no further. In his own mind was the thought that
he, at least, would find out if the three stones did not mark some spot
vastly more important than Soapy pictured. Let Gaines and Perth think
what they might, the main thing was to be starting in pursuit.
"If it's us for Sagersgrove and the old State pike west, we can't move
too fast," he said. "We can trail them all right from there, and catch
them by Sunday, I'll bet!"
Gaines and Perth gave prompt acquiescence. The Roadster was run to its
home garage at once, and there followed the trying packing and repacking
of touring equipment which inexperience always encounters.
Preparations for a hurried departure had been going forward, in a
haphazard way, for a long time. The result was an accumulation of much
baggage that was not needed, and the utter absence of several items both
desirable and necessary. Out of such chaos order was brought before
noon, however, and the three lads separated to meet again at one
o'clock.
Their good-bys were said, their car at last lacked nothing which could
well be carried on a machine of its type, and the Chosen Trio headed
toward Sagersgrove promptly at the hour named.
"Now burn up the road," quoth Mr. Soapy Gaines; and Perth, at the
steering wheel, answered, "We'll see the Gold Cup races, anyhow."
"Enough more than races, you take it from me," said young Mr. Pickton,
grimly, still thinking of--what?