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."