THE AUTO GONE.
“Harry!”
“What is it, Frank?”
“Get on your clothes. You, too, Bart Witherbee, and be sure to conceal
the map of your mine carefully.”
“What be yer goin’ ter do, Frank?”
“Fool those rascals. There is no doubt they are going to the stable and
try to disable our aeroplane.”
“I reckon we’ll fool ’em, Frank.”
“I hope so. We must make haste. Come on out through this window here. It
leads onto a back porch. We can slip down a support without anyone
seeing us and get round to the stable before they get up from their
table. They’ll be in no hurry, for they think we’re asleep.”
“What are we to do, Frank?” asked Billy Barnes and Lathrop, who, with
old Mr. Joyce, were evidently to be left behind.
“Just snore as loud as ever you can. There is no doubt that they will
creep up here after a while to see if we are asleep. If they hear you
snoring they will think everything is all right.”
Frank, Harry and their hard companion were soon out of the window and on
the ground. They found themselves on a back street, or rather, a mere
trail on the prairie, for the town consisted of but a single street.
They rapidly made their way to the livery stable. The man who owned it
was there, and at first was inclined to be angry at being awakened.
He appeared at his door with a gun.
“Git out of here, you no good drunken cattle rustlers,” he bellowed, “or
I’ll fill you full of lead. Don’t come skylarking around me.”
“We are not cattle rustlers. We’re the boys who own that aeroplane,”
explained Frank. “We heard to-night, or rather we overheard, a plot to
damage it so that it could not win the race.”
“What’s that?” demanded the other, “some no good, ornery cusses
undertook ter come roun’t here and do up that thar contraption of
yourn?”
“That’s it.”
“Wall, I don’t know as I’d blame anyone fer wantin’ ter bust up such
things. Hosses air good enough fer us out here in the west, but nobody
ain’t goin’ to hurt nothin’ of nobody’s while it’s under my care. Come
on in an’ tell me about it.”
The boys’ story was soon told. When it was concluded the stable man was
mad clear through.
“What, that hobo of a Wild Bill Jenkins, as he calls his self, come
aroun’ here and try monkey tricks in my barn? Not much,” he kept
repeating. “Hev you boys got shootin’-irons?”
“We shore have,” replied old Bart Witherbee.
“Well, you at least look like a party as could use one,” remarked the
stable man, gazing at Bart’s rugged face. “Now the only thing to do is
to wait for them to come.”
“That’s it, I guess,” agreed Frank. “They can’t be so very long if they
want to get away before daylight.”
But the boys little knew the ingenious plan that the rogues had decided
on to compass their ends and destroy the _Golden Eagle_. Even while they
sat there waiting Luther Barr and the others were working out their
scheme.
Before long there was the distant chug-chug of an auto heard and as the
machine drove away, the sound diminished till it died out.
“Well, I guess your friends decided that they’d put their little
expedition off,” grinned the stable keeper. “There they go and good
riddance to ’em, I say.”
They waited a while longer, but there was no demonstration of their
enemies’ presence. Suddenly Frank sniffed curiously.
“Do you smell anything?” he asked presently. “It seems to me there’s
something burning somewhere.”
“I noticed it, too,” said Harry.
At the same instant there was a glare of red flame from the rear of the
stable.
“Fire!” shouted the stableman.
His cry rang through the night, and in a few seconds the small prairie
town was ringing with it. The flames gained rapid headway. They ate
through the sun-dried timbers of the stable as if it had been made of
paper.
The stableman and his friends rushed madly about getting out horses and
rigs to places of safety. As for the boys and Bart they seized hold of
the aeroplane and dragged it beyond reach of the flames. They then ran
out the auto. This done they returned and helped the stableman. Soon all
the stock and valuable buggies were out of the place and it was a
roaring mass of savage flames. There was no fire department in Gitalong,
so the inhabitants, instead of wasting their efforts on trying to
extinguish the blaze with buckets of water, devoted their attention to
wetting down adjoining roofs in order to prevent the flames spreading.
The boys were so busy attending to this work that they didn’t stop to
notice what had become of their companions. They had had, however, a
moment to exchange a hasty word with Billy, Lathrop and old man Joyce,
who had hastened from the hotel at the first cry of alarm.
The flames were about out and the barn was reduced to a smouldering heap
of ashes before they had time to look about them.
“Why, where’s Mr. Joyce?” suddenly exclaimed Bart.
“He was here a minute ago,” rejoined Frank. “Have you seen him, Billy?”
“Not for the last ten minutes,” replied the other. “What can have become
of him?”
“I guess he got tired and went back to the hotel,” suggested Harry.
“That must be it. Come on, let’s go and see if he is all right.”
They started off, but on the way were halted by the stableman.
“Thank you, boys, for helping me!” he exclaimed warmly, extending his
hand. “It was mighty white of you.”
“I hope your loss was not very heavy,” said Frank.
“Oh, no; I had that covered by insurance. A good thing I had, too. If
ever I get my hands on that rascal, Wild Bill Jenkins, I’ll make it hot
for him.”
“Why; do you suspect him of setting it?”
“Not only him but your friends—or whatever you like to call ’em. The
scalliwags suspected we might be on the lookout for ’em, and so we were,
but at the wrong door. While we were expecting ’em to come sneaking up
in front they walks up behind and sets a fire. They’d fix your aeroplane
forever and a day, they thought, and as for my barn they didn’t bother
about that.”
“That must be it,” exclaimed Frank. “I’d like to get my hands on the
rascals.”
“Let’s drive after them and have them arrested at Pintoville. We can
easily do it,” suggested Billy.
“All right, you and Bart take the auto. I’ve got to find Mr. Joyce.”
“_Where is the auto?_” suddenly exclaimed Harry, looking about him. “It
was here while we were working at the fire and now it’s gone.”
“Gone!” gasped the others.
“Yes, gone. Look, there’s not a sign of it.”
“That’s right,” said the stableman; “looks like that chu-chu cart had
flown away. Wall, if it’s in this town it won’t take long to find it.”
The stableman, who the boys now found out was also mayor, at once
ordered out several men with instructions to search for the missing car,
but they all reported half an hour later, when the town had been
thoroughly searched, that not a trace of it could be found.
In the meantime a search had been conducted for old Mr. Joyce, but he
also had vanished as mysteriously as the auto.
“What can have become of them?” exclaimed Frank, despairingly. “Without
the auto and our supplies we cannot go any further.”
At this juncture a man came rushing up with a report that searchers had
found the tracks of two autos, both going out of the town over the
Pintoville road.
“Pintoville is where Luther Barr is staying,” cried Frank.
“Then you can depend upon it,” rejoined their friend, the mayor, “that
that is where your auto and the old man have gone.”
“But why should they want to kidnap old Mr. Joyce?” demanded Frank.
“You’ll have to ask me an easy one,” answered the mayor, picking up a
straw and sucking it with deep meditation.