BY THE ROADSIDE.
The boys ran forward across the few yards of meadow that intervened
between the Wondership and the roadway. The autoists did not,
apparently, notice them. They had stopped the car and were looking
back.
"Come on and let's get out of this quick," one of them, a hawk-faced
youth, with a long motoring duster on, was shouting to the driver.
"Yes, let's beat it while the going's good, Bill," came from his
companion as he addressed the driver of the car.
"I guess we'd better," said the man addressed as Bill.
Before the boys could intervene the car was on its way again, at top
speed, leaving the unconscious form of its victim at the roadside.
"Of all the cold-blooded scoundrels!" gasped Jack, horrified at such
callousness.
"Never mind them now," advised Tom. "Let's see if this poor fellow is
badly hurt. He may even be----"
He did not finish the sentence, but Jack knew what he meant. Hastily
the boys scrambled down the low bank that separated the field from the
road. They ran quickly to the man's side. To their great relief, for
they had feared that he might have been killed, the man was breathing.
But his breath came pantingly from his parted lips and there was a bad
cut on his forehead.
"Get some water from the creek yonder," said Jack, and Tom hastened up
the road to where, beneath the small wooden bridge, there flowed a
rivulet of water.
He was soon back, with his handkerchief well soaked, and with an old
can, that he had been lucky enough to find, filled with water. They
bathed the man's wound and then bound it up as best they could. But he
still lay senseless.
"Now what's to be done?" asked Tom.
"We ought to get him over to the Wondership and rush him to the
hospital at Nestorville," said Jack.
"Yes, that would be the thing to do. But he's too heavy for us to
carry," objected Tom.
"Why not fly over here alongside him. I guess we could lift him in;
that patch ought to hold by this time," suggested Jack.
"That's a good idea. What a pack of cowardly sneaks those chaps in
that car were."
"I wish we could have stopped them. It would give me real pleasure to
see a gang like that get its just deserts. They might have killed this
poor fellow."
The unconscious man was powerfully built, with face tanned brown above
a yellow beard, from exposure to sun and wind. As Jack had said, he
did not look like a tramp. Suddenly the boy noticed lying near him an
object which had evidently fallen from the man's pocket when he was
struck and flung through the air by the auto.
It was a small cylinder, apparently made of lead, and about three
inches long. Jack picked it up, and for the time being did not attempt
to examine it but thrust it into his pocket for safe keeping. Little
did either of the boys think how much that little cylinder was to mean
to them, and how it was to influence some of the most important
adventures of their lives.
Making the man as comfortable as they could, by rolling up their coats
and placing them under his head, the boys hurried back to the
Wondership. When they arrived there they saw that a feature of the
radio 'phone, which has not yet been mentioned, was working in urgent
appeal. This was a tiny red electric light attached to the top of the
case containing the sensitive parts of the apparatus.
By an ingenious device, worked as a call signal from the transmitting
station, the electric waves converted a lighting circuit for this
purpose.
It was winking and twinkling, and Jack knew that his father was
trying to call them.
He sent out some flashes by starting the dynamo going and pressing a
key devised for the purpose. This, he knew, would cause a similar
light attached to his father's apparatus to flash a reply. This done
he waited a second and then adjusted the receivers to his ears.
"What's the matter?" came his father's voice.
Jack gave him a rapid account of the accident, not stopping just then
to say anything about the incident of the farmer and his barn.
"What are you going to do about it?" asked his father.
"He appears to be seriously hurt," said Jack. "I was thinking of
rushing him to the hospital at Nestorville."
"That seems to be the best plan," said his father. "By the way, did
those autoists get clear away?"
"I'm afraid so. They never even waited a second to see if the man was
badly injured. They----"
Jack suddenly stopped short. An inspiration had come to him. The
accident had happened on a road that, as he knew, led straight through
Nestorville. He had thought of a plan to bring the autoists to book
for their callousness and negligence.
"Dad--oh, dad!" he called.
"Yes, what is it?" came back Mr. Chadwick's voice.
"Those fellows will pass through Nestorville. I had a flash of the
number of the car. It was 4206 Mass. It's a red car and a powerful
one, with three men in it."
"What do you want to do?" asked Mr. Chadwick.
"Can't you 'phone to the Nestorville police, telling them what has
happened and have those fellows stopped. I'm not vindictive, but they
ought to be brought to book for running down a man and then speeding
off and leaving him like that."
"I agree with you," replied Mr. Chadwick. "I'll do so at once.
Good-by."
"Good-by," said Jack and "rang off."
"That was a great idea of yours, Jack, old boy," approved Tom. "I hope
they land those fellows."
"Of course it was an accident," said Jack, "but that fellow who was
driving was too busy talking to watch the road, and then going off
like that--they deserve all they get."
Examination of the patch showed that it would hold fast and the bag
was refilled. As soon as it was sufficiently inflated, the Wondership
sailed over to the road and was brought down alongside the still
unconscious man.
"Looks as if he's badly hurt," said Tom with some anxiety.
"It does. His skull may be fractured," agreed Jack. "If he is
seriously injured those fellows may get into trouble."
It required all the boys' strength to raise the man and get him into
the Wondership. Here they laid him out on the floor of the rear
section. They had just done this when the red light signaled Jack
again. It was Mr. Chadwick. He had notified the Nestorville police
force, consisting of a chief and two men, and they were on the lookout
for the offending auto.
"Good," said Jack. "Say, dad, the radio telephone has shown its
usefulness on the first day out, hasn't it?"
They were soon in the air once more. The run to Nestorville was made
quickly. On the outskirts of the town they came to earth and deflated
the balloon bag, since the hospital stood in a group of trees and it
would have been impossible to make a landing there. The Wondership was
converted into an auto and sent speeding toward the main street of the
village.
Suddenly they heard a whir of wheels behind them and an impatient
tooting of a horn. They looked back and uttered a simultaneous cry of
astonishment.
The red auto that had run down the yellow-bearded man was behind them.
Its occupants were shouting and sounding their horn impatiently for
the right of way.