THE SUNKEN ROAD.
Hugh came running back, with Gusty trailing after him, quite as anxious
as the rest to learn what had happened to the one bringing up the rear
of the motorcycle procession.
They found Billy bending down and examining his machine with a
woe-begone look on his good-natured face. He glanced up at their
approach. Monkey Stallings was on the other side, and still searching
for the cause of the trouble, though he did not know much more than the
stout boy about the intricate construction of motors.
“What ails you now, Billy?” asked Hugh, for he did not have to be told
that the individual in question was the cause of the breakdown.
“Wish I knew,” replied the other, dolefully, “that’s the trouble. You
see I’ve noticed for some little time that I had to make more or less of
an effort to keep my place in the line. While you fellows were gliding
along as smooth as silk, my balky engine had to be coaxed and kicked to
hold its own. And now, after that last little halt she’s gone back on me
altogether. I keep losing ground right along, and would soon be hull
down in the distance. That’s why I let out the toot for help.”
Hugh looked serious.
“It means a delay while we examine things,” he remarked, throwing off
his coat as though getting ready for business.
“I’m sorry if I’ve gone and blundered again,” Billy continued sadly. “It
would serve me just about right if the rest of you went on and left me
to my fate.”
“Oh, rats, don’t mention it,” said Monkey indignantly. “What d’ye take
us for, anyway? What’s the use of being a scout if you won’t hold out a
helping hand to a comrade in distress? We’d expect you to do the same if
one of our machines threw up the sponge, and sulked. Leave it to Hugh;
he’ll bring you around O. K.”
That was an old story with the boys. “Leave it to Hugh” had become a
sort of slogan with the members of the Wolf Patrol. Many a time had
Billy, Bud Morgan, Arthur Cameron or some other member of the famous
patrol, after trying in vain to solve a knotty problem, turned hopefully
to the assistant scout master; and seldom had their sublime confidence
in his ability to find a remedy been misplaced.
As Hugh began to use his little monkey-wrench, unfastening several nuts,
and testing one thing after another, the others watched with
considerable interest. Minutes crept on until it began to look as though
they had lost nearly half an hour on the road. “Billy Wolf,” as he was
often called by his chums, fretted terribly.
“Better leave me here while the rest of you go on,” he said for the
fourth time. He had hardly gotten the words out of his mouth when he
heard Hugh give a little satisfied chuckle.
“Located the trouble?” asked Monkey eagerly, with a triumphant glance
toward Gusty, as though to say: “There! what did I tell you; Hugh is the
boss hand to see through things, isn’t he?”
“After all,” explained Hugh, “it was a mighty simple thing, but it
happened that I tried about seven other possible causes for a gradual
slowing up of the motor before I reached the carburetor. Why, it was
only the needle valve that stuck. I’ll have it working as good as ever
in a jiffy; and you’ll not be bothered again from _that_ cause in a
hurry, Billy, old fellow.”
“Oh! was that it?” remarked the relieved Billy. “I began to think the
whole business must be on the bum, and that I’d have to walk and push
the plagued machine along with me to the village three miles back. Huh!
believe me, I’ll keep an eye on that tricky valve after this. I may make
lots of mistakes, but it’s seldom I tumble into the same old hole twice.
I’m on, Hugh; I see how you do it. I’m learning something new every hour
of the day. Seems like there’s an everlasting lot of things I don’t
grasp yet. The more I know the more I don’t know. Laugh now, Monkey, but
you’re in the same boat yourself.”
Hugh made short work of his job, and presently handed the motorcycle
over to its owner.
On the way back to where his own machine had been left, he was pleased
to hear Gusty remark with considerable vim, as though he meant it:
“I like the way you fellows carry on, honest I do. I’ve been with a set
that would have left a chap in the lurch to take care of his own wheel
while they rode on and told him they’d wait at the next wayside inn,
where they could get a cool drink of mineral water, and lie around
resting up till he came. You scouts stand by each other. And I
understand now why they elected you assistant scout master of the troop.
You’re Johnny-on-the-spot for the job, all right, Hugh Hardin. Excuse me
if I ask all sorts of foolish questions about the way scouts manage. I’m
getting up to my ears interested in this game. I never dreamed it could
be so fascinating. And the more you hear, the more you want to know.”
“That’s the secret of the rapid growth of the scout movement,” Hugh told
him. “As soon as you get the average boy interested he asks questions,
and once that happens, he learns things that set him agoing. After that
nothing can stop him; and in a year’s time, you wouldn’t know it was the
same boy, because he takes such an interest in a thousand things that
are happening all around him.”
Soon they were moving on again, and from the signals that came from the
rear, Hugh knew that all was well with Billy.
Perhaps two more miles had been placed behind them, when all of a sudden
the pacemaker gave a short blast on his horn, and slowed up as though he
had made a discovery of some sort. Immediately he and Gusty were off, he
leaned his motorcycle up against a convenient tree, not waiting to make
use of the stand, and leading the other through a fringe of bushes,
observed:
“Is that your car, Gusty?”
The rich man’s son gave a low cry of mingled surprise and joy.
“I declare if it isn’t my runabout!” he exclaimed. “And to think how
easily you glimpsed it ahead. But what do you expect they drew it in
here for, Hugh? Has the gas given out, or was there a smash of some
sort? Seems to be all right, as far’s I can see at a glance.”
“We’ll have to figure that out in a minute or so,” replied the other.
“You keep on examining the car while I look around to see which way the
two men went from here. That would be apt to give us a clew.”
“In what way?” demanded Gusty, while he started to look his property
over, in order to learn the condition in which it had been left by the
two robbers.
“Well, if they kept on along the road it would look as if they had been
unable to use the runabout further,” answered the patrol leader, as he
stooped and began to use his practiced eyes to advantage. “On the other
hand, if they plunged right into the woods I would think they had come
as far as they expected to on wheels, and finished their journey afoot.”
“What a greenhorn I am not to have understood that!” declared the other
boy, thoroughly disgusted with himself for not having taken the trouble
to exercise his brain more in the past, so as to be alive to such
situations as this; it galled his pride to have to depend on anyone else
for information.
Monkey came along and dropped out of his saddle beside them. He was just
as much surprised and tickled at seeing the car as the owner had been;
but he did not immediately proceed to ask questions. He knew what Hugh
was doing when he saw him bending down and examining the surrounding
earth.
Just as Billy hove in sight and slowed down so that he could join his
chums, the patrol leader remarked that the trail of the two men ran off
directly into the thick of the woods, which at this particular spot grew
rather densely.
“And I can’t find the least thing the matter with my car,” Gusty
observed. “There seems to be some gasoline in the tank, too. So that
they could have gone a good many more miles if they’d wished. Yes, you
were right, Hugh. They abandoned it for another reason. I’d even say
they might know of some hiding place in this region, and right here is a
short-cut to it.”
“That was a time you struck the right nail on the head, Gusty,” remarked
Hugh. “I believe that’s what it will turn out to be in the end.”
“Of course we push through the woods, don’t we?” queried Monkey.
“And that means we’ll have to leave our machines hid away somewhere,”
Billy added, with a ring of solicitude in his voice. “I’d like to do
something so as to make it impossible for anybody to ride away on my
motorcycle while I’m gone. It would be a tough joke on us to chase after
those rogues while they came back on the sly and hooked two of our
precious wheels.”
“We can fix that all right. Meanwhile, Gusty, you disable your runabout
in some temporary way, so that it couldn’t be of any use to anybody
until the missing part is supplied.”
“A great idea, as sure as you’re born! I can do it as easy as anything!”
exclaimed the other boy, hastening to carry out the suggestion without
even stopping to consider that only an hour or so back he would have
laughed scornfully if some one had told him that before long he would be
taking orders from Hugh Hardin as meekly as any private in the scout
troop.
All this took but little time, and presently they were ready to advance
along the forest trail. Gusty found himself quivering with eagerness to
see how these boys would manage to carry out the tracking part of the
business. Had it been left to him, he would have made a sorry mess of
it, he admitted to himself. His pride was touched, and he began to
reflect that never again would he allow himself to be placed in a
position where even a boy like Billy Worth, whom he had previously
looked on as rather stupid, could give him pointers. He would learn
these things for himself. Perhaps he might even organize a new patrol,
and be its leader, if he only busied himself, and stocked his head with
useful knowledge along the line of scoutcraft.
“Here’s what they were heading for!” said Hugh softly after they had
been moving along for some ten minutes. He had several times pointed out
faint indications of footprints to Gusty.
“Why, it looks like an old abandoned road all grown up with grass and
briars!” declared Monkey.
“Just what it is,” replied Hugh. “I’ve been expecting to run across it
right along, because my map shows where it lies. You see, once ever so
many years ago many wagons came along here every day, some loaded with
corn or wheat or rye, and others taking flour back home to the farm.”
“Oh! I know now what you mean, Hugh,” said Billy. “There was a spot
marked on your map, and I read the words ‘old mill.’ Yes, and I remember
hearing tell about some such place up here in the wilderness. Thirty
years ago a miller used the water power of a creek that empties into the
river to grind his grist. Do you think that’s where these two thieves
were heading for, Hugh?”
“Looks like it,” nodded the patrol leader, pointing down. “You can see
that as soon as they struck this sunken road they didn’t even halt, but
started right along it, heading that way. We’ll do the same, and after
this please speak in low whispers if you have to say anything. I don’t
believe that mill can be more than half a mile away if it’s that.”
They moved on, all of them half bent over as they sought to keep track
of the footprints of the two men. It was quite thrilling, Gusty admitted
to himself every little while. He was enjoying it very much. If Boy
Scouts practiced this sort of stunt very often he did not wonder that so
many fellows had joined the organization; and the resolution he had
taken continued to grip him more and more the deeper he pried into the
matter.
“I think I hear water splashing ahead there, Hugh!” whispered Monkey,
who had a very keen pair of ears.
“Yes, we must be getting close to the dam where the water falls,” the
patrol leader told him. “Pretty soon we’ll know whether we’ve cornered
the rats or not. Steady now, and keep under cover the best you can.
Remember, not a sound, fellows!”