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[Illustration: "RAH! RAH! RAH! RAH!" SCREAMED PAUL JONES IN THE MOST
EXTRAVAGANT DELIGHT IMAGINABLE.]
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THE AUTO BOYS' VACATION
By James A. Braden
AUTHOR OF
"THE AUTO BOYS," "THE AUTO BOYS' OUTING,"
"THE AUTO BOYS' QUEST," "FAR PAST THE FRONTIER,"
"CONNECTICUT BOYS IN THE WESTERN RESERVE," ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY
E. A. FURMAN
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
CHICAGO--AKRON, OHIO--NEW YORK
------------------------------------------------------------------------
COPYRIGHT, 1913,
BY
THE SAALFIELD PUBLISHING COMPANY
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I Again the Lonely South Fork Road 1
II The Search Is Continued 13
III Mr. Billy Worth Does Some Thinking 27
IV Detective Bob Rack Has Something to Say 43
V A Bit of Advice From a Stranger 59
VI A Little Kindness and What Came of It 71
VII A Swift Ride Through the Darkness 85
VIII In Most Excellent Good Season 103
IX The Detective's Strange Story 111
X Eastward Ho! 127
XI Passing the Load of Hay 143
XII Nan and the Jersey Bull 163
XIII The Kidnapers 183
XIV Under the Car 199
XV At the Old Tavern 219
XVI Conclusion 239
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THE AUTO BOYS' VACATION
CHAPTER I
AGAIN THE LONELY SOUTH FORK ROAD
"You can't hide anything from the chief," observed Willie Creek, when
Chief Fobes had left his garage, the scene of the mystery related in
_The Auto Boys' Big Six_.
"Well, he didn't seem to be a whole lot interested to find out who broke
in here--who killed our dog," replied Billy Worth, severely.
"You don't _know_ him," returned Mr. Creek. "You just show him the
fellow that done the deed and he'll arrest him mighty quick."
"Maybe if we'd see a man robbing a bank here, then called Fobes so he
could see, too, that the man _was_ robbing the bank, he'd do something,"
remarked Billy, as the lads returned to the hotel.
"I'll tell you what _he'd_ do," growled Paul Jones. "He'd say--'now from
the standpoint of the law, maybe that man is going to commit a crime.
From the standpoint of the law, he better go a little careful or I'll
tell his mother on him.'"
All of which might be taken to indicate that Chief Fobes was not as
great a man in the minds of the four boys as he was in his own. Still,
something might be said on both sides of this subject, quite as Phil Way
now remarked, but the conversation was abruptly dropped.
"No news yet?" asked Mr. Wagg. The lads had just reached the hotel
again.
"None of the car, but--" and then they told the landlord of the killing
of Scottie. Confidentially they intimated their belief that John Smith
or "Pickem" might know something of the affair.
"Very strange," mused Mr. Wagg. "He checked out--paid his bill and
left--last night. He said he was leaving on the ten o'clock train east.
Seemed put out because the party he had been expecting in to see him had
not come. But he left no word--no address for mail, or anything."
The hotel proprietor was not at all pleased with the indifference of
Chief Fobes. The boys had told him of all that took place at the garage.
"Yet of course," said he, "it might make a difference if you lived here.
There'd be quite a little expense to find out who killed the dog and,
besides, the thieves, if it was thieves who did it, didn't get anything.
It doesn't seem to me, now really, that this new trouble has anything to
do with your lost automobile, and I take it that that's the main thing,
after all."
To this the boys agreed and, eager to put into execution Phil's plan to
telephone to all the larger cities east and west, to get some trace of
the Big Six, if possible, they started for the telephone office.
"But we can't all telephone," said Phil. "Who will look after burying
Scottie? And who will go to Ferndale in the Torpedo and take back the
pick and shovel to the blacksmith? Even if he did say we might have them
as long as we liked, they should be toted home to-day."
Billy and Paul volunteered for the work mentioned. With the cold, stiff
body of poor Scottie covered over with muslin in the tonneau, they
started the stray automobile again toward the lonely South Fork and
Ferndale. Where the dog's burial place should be had been a problem.
Willie Creek suggested a wooded knoll where some evergreens grew, not
far beyond the branching of the road. This place the two boys reached in
due time. It seemed to be quite what they sought.
Overhead the always green branches would sing a gentle requiem in the
breeze the whole year through. The thick, emerald foliage would protect
the little grave below, both from the violence of winter's storms and
the heat of the summer sun.
The solemn task was not a pleasant one. They wrapped the clean, new
muslin around the body that in life had been so lithe, so strong, so
active and so handsome, and gently placed it in the soft, cool ground.
After the beautiful custom of the Grand Army of the Republic they put
bits of evergreen in the grave, in token of unceasing remembrance of
their dead comrade. Slowly they filled in the earth.
"We'll come back some day--some day when we've at last got out of this
awful ocean of bad luck we seem to be in, and we'll put up a little
stone to mark the grave," said Billy. "If ever a dog deserved it,
Scottie does. I only wish we knew to whom he rightly belonged before Mr.
Knight ever saw him. They'd like to hear, I think, that he was a hero,
whether they cast him off or not, or even if he was a runaway."
Going on toward Ferndale, the little town two or three miles beyond
where the Big Six was ditched, Billy and Paul again deeply felt the
lonely influence of the unfrequented road. Even in the bright sunshine
the old mill-pond, the mill, the big, empty icehouse, the weeping
willows near them--all seemed to tell of that dreadful tragedy of many
years ago. The boys both noticed as they passed how the road's bank
sloped down, and their active imaginations plainly pictured the
frightened horses, the overturned carriage and the flood of the great,
dark pond closing over the young man and his mother, whose sad story
Willie Creek had told them.
Farther on, at the spot where all their own troubles had had their
beginning, the two lads stopped. Filled with vain regrets they looked
again all about the place where the Six went down. But if they expected
to make any new discovery, they were disappointed. The road was dry now.
The broken fence rails still lay at the foot of the embankment. The
trampled grass and weeds still told of what had happened, but no one had
been near; no human creature, it was to be believed, had visited the
scene since the boys last saw it.
Returning to their car, the friends soon reached the house where they
had stopped to make inquiry that first day of their trouble--the house
where lived the lonely, old man, all his thoughts in the days of long
ago. They now knew the story of the faded dwelling, the crumbling
condition of every structure. Curiously they glanced about, thinking
they might see the lonely, old gentleman and give him a friendly
salute--just a hand thrown up for an instant--as they passed.
Ah, there he was! Seated in the kitchen doorway, he saw the machine even
before Paul and Billy saw him. Their wave of a hand seemed to please
him, and he waved a beckoning signal in return. Billy jumped down and
walked up to see if something was wanted.
"No, no!" the old man replied, far more pleasantly than at that former
time. He meant only to acknowledge their greeting, he said. Then he
asked if the owner of the runaway car had been found.
This led Billy to tell all about the misfortune that had followed the
picking up of the strange automobile. The farmer ruefully shook his
head. There were many days together that no vehicle went along this
road, in these latter years, he said. He could hardly understand how so
strange a thing should happen almost at his door. And he had been
disturbed in other ways. Only last night, as he sat in the kitchen door,
he had seen a crouching figure in the moonlight slip from one tree to
another. It was after midnight. Visitors he little expected to have at
any time, much less at such an hour. So he called out, "Hello, there!"
The figure hastened away and he saw it no more.
"It fretted me some," said the old gentleman slowly, "but I didn't see
anything more, clean to daylight."
Somehow the picture of the aged, unhappy man sitting all night in the
kitchen door, as his imagination presented it, touched Billy's
sympathies deeply. He asked if Mr. Peek would not like to take a little
ride in the car to Ferndale. They were coming back at once. It would
take but a little while, he urged.
With something more like a smile than had been seen on his face for many
a year, the old man said he never had ridden in an automobile, and would
be glad to go. He climbed up to the front seat beside Paul. Billy told
him it was the more comfortable place to ride. And plainly Mr. Peek
enjoyed the trip. He was quite silent but his deep, pain-marked eyes
lighted up noticeably.
"It's a grand thing to be young," said he, at last.
Neither blacksmith nor storekeeper at Ferndale had heard the slightest
inquiry for the runaway automobile, which was not a runaway at all at
the time it passed through that village the previous Friday. Nor had
they heard anything which might cast light upon the theft of the Big
Six.
"You'll find that whoever had this Torpedo car is the same party that
hooked your machine," said the blacksmith. "Stands to reason. Wherever
could he have disappeared to, if it ain't so?"
"I'm afraid you're on the wrong track," smiled Billy, a little sadly.
"Chief Fobes, at Griffin, says positively that the two things--this lost
machine on the one hand, and the stealing of our car on the other--have
no connection with each other."
"Matter of opinion!" spoke the blacksmith warmly. And then as if he
scarcely endorsed Willie Creek's high opinion of Mr. Fobes' ability, he
added: "And I'll put my judgment against his'n any day."
Arranging with their friends to telephone them at the American House
immediately should there be any development at Ferndale concerning
either car, the two boys turned toward Griffin. They stopped at his
lonely, cheerless home to leave Mr. Peek. His thankful appreciation of
the ride made them glad of the little kindness they had been able to
show him. Neither lad thought to attach importance to the old man's
account of his being disturbed by prowlers. It was Phil who saw
significance in this story as, at dinner, Billy and Paul told all that
had taken place with them.
"It's a mighty mysterious business," declared Way. "Don't you see it?
Here's an automobile,--quite likely a stolen automobile, at
that--abandoned and left to run itself on a lonely road. No one can
discover what became of the driver of that car. He was certainly driving
when the machine left Ferndale. Three miles further on, and near the old
Peek place, he is missing. Now isn't it likely that the same man is
still sneaking around in that neighborhood?"
"Well, anyhow, we're getting off the main track again," Billy returned.
"We'd like to know where the Torpedo belongs, but it's a heap more
important that we keep on the trail of our own machine."
"Yes, that's so," Phil soberly assented. "It's certainly strange that
all my telephoning went for nothing. The police and all the big garages
from Albany to Buffalo, I should say, have a description of our car, and
yet not a sign of her has been discovered any place."
"There's a long distance telephone call for Mr. Way," announced the
voice of Mr. Wagg, the landlord.