THE MISSING TRUCK
"Let's tackle that fellow!" exclaimed Frank Hardy. "We can ask him
about your fishing rod, Jack."
Frank scrambled into the bushes, where Gus Montrose had disappeared,
and in a moment his companions were hurrying after him. But although
Frank had lost little time making up his mind to question the former
hired man, Montrose had been too quick for him. The fellow was nowhere
to be seen.
"Shall I call to him?" asked Jack Dodd.
"You can if you want to," answered Frank. "I doubt if he'll answer."
"Might scare him into running faster," suggested Joe.
"I reckon he's running about as fast as he can now."
"Gus! Gus Montrose!" yelled Jack. "Come back here! We want to talk to
you!"
All listened, but no reply came to this call.
"Silence fills the air profound," came soberly from Joe.
"So much noise it would wake a tombstone," added Chet.
Again Jack called, and with no better results.
"Let's all yell together," suggested Joe.
This was done, but no answer came back.
"Sorry, but I've got a date elsewhere," mimicked Joe. "Be back next
month at three o'clock."
"That fellow is no good, and I know it," murmured Frank. "An honest man
would come back and face us."
"Listen!" cried Jack, putting up his hand.
All listened with strained ears.
"Don't hear a thing--" began Chet.
"I hear it," interrupted Frank.
A snapping and crackling sound among the bushes ahead lured the boys on
and they went plunging through the woods. They failed to catch sight of
the quarry, however. Evidently Montrose was well acquainted with this
part of the country, for after a while the sounds of his retreat died
away.
Frank, who was in the lead, came to a stop, realizing that further
pursuit was useless. In a few minutes the others came up, panting.
"Did he get away?" asked Joe.
Frank nodded. "He was too quick for us. When he knew we were after him
he didn't lose any time."
"I wish we had been able to talk to the rascal," said Jack Dodd. "I
would have had a few things to tell him."
"Probably we wouldn't have got much satisfaction out of him, anyway,"
Frank remarked. "Still, you could have asked him what he knew about
that fishing rod."
"It's something to know that he's still hanging around this part of the
country," pointed out Chet. "He has evidently been lying low since he
left your farm."
"He's up to some mischief, I'm sure of that."
"Probably built himself a shack somewhere in the woods," suggested Joe.
"Well, we may run across him some other time. It's getting late and I
think we'd better be starting home," said Frank.
Chet and Joe agreed that it was about time, and as there seemed little
to be gained by continuing the search for Gus Montrose or for any
evidence of the stolen cars, the boys retraced their steps back through
the woods until they reached the Shore Road. Their motorcycles had been
parked in the shelter of the trees.
"About time for my supper, too," said Jack Dodd. "If you're out this
way again, look me up and we'll make another search through the woods."
His friends promised to do this and, bidding Jack good-bye, they
mounted their motorcycles and were soon roaring off in the direction of
Bayport. They had spent more time in the wood than they had been aware
of, and were anxious to get back to the city without being too late for
the evening meal. Mrs. Hardy seldom scolded, but the boys had vivid
recollections of Aunt Gertrude's acid remarks on similar occasions.
They emerged on an open stretch of road where a sand embankment sloped
steeply down to Barmet Bay. The beach lay beneath them at the foot of
the sheer declivity and the waters of the bay sparkled in the rays of
the late afternoon sun.
A movement on the beach caught Frank's eye and he brought his
motorcycle to a sudden stop.
"What's the matter?" asked Joe, swerving wildly to avoid piling
headlong into Frank's machine.
"Run out of gas?" inquired Chet, putting on the brakes.
But Frank had dismounted and was walking over to the side of the road,
out on to the top of the embankment.
"There's somebody down on the beach."
"What of it? Somebody swimming or fishing. Do you mean to say you
stopped just because of that?"
But Frank was gazing down the steep, sandy slope.
"There's something queer about this," he said slowly. "There are two
men down there, lying on the sand."
Joe and Chet, immediately interested, came running over. The three boys
looked down at the two figures on the beach far below.
"They're not asleep," said Joe. "One of them seems to be rolling
around."
"They're tied!" shouted Frank. "Look! You can see the ropes! I was
wondering what was so queer about them. Those men are tied hand and
foot!"
Joe was examining the embankment at their feet.
"Why, they've been rolled down the side!" he exclaimed. "Look where the
sand has been disturbed!"
True enough, sand and gravel at the top of the slope showed a distinct
depression, and all the way down the embankment this depression
continued, as though a heavy object had slid to the bottom.
From the beach below came a faint shout.
"Help! Help!"
The men on the shore had seen them.
"We'd better go down," said Frank. "I wonder if there isn't a path of
some kind around here."
"Let's slide!" Chet suggested.
"We're liable to break our necks tobogganing down this slope. No, there
should be a path."
Frank ran along the top of the embankment toward a clump of trees a
few yards away, where the slope was not so steep, and there he found a
foot-path that led a winding course down the side of the hill toward
the beach. It wound about across the face of the slope and covered
twice the distance they would have had to go if they had adopted Chet's
suggestion, though it was a great deal surer. They emerged on the open
shore eventually and saw the two bound figures lying on the beach not
fifty yards off.
In a short time the boys were bending over the prostrate victims. The
men, who were clad in overalls, were bound hand and foot with heavy
rope, at which the lads slashed vigorously with their pocketknives.
The strands fell apart and the two men were able to sit up, rubbing
their limbs, which had been chafed by the ropes in their efforts to
free themselves.
"I thought we'd be here all night!" declared one of the men, a plump,
grimy young fellow about twenty years of age.
"Mighty lucky thing for us that you saw us," said the other, who was
older in appearance. "We shouted and shouted. At least a dozen cars
must have passed along the road and no one saw us."
They got to their feet.
"What happened?" asked Frank. "How on earth do you come to be down
here, tied up like this?"
"Hold-up!" said the older man briefly. He looked up toward the road, an
anxious expression on his face. "I don't suppose you met a truck along
the road anywhere?"
The boys shook their heads.
"It's gone, then," said the younger man with a gesture of resignation.
"Six thousand dollars' worth of goods!"
"We'll have to get back to town and report this."
"We can take you back," said Frank quickly. "We have motorcycles up on
the road."
"Fine. Let's hurry!"
The two men started back toward the path at a rapid gait and the three
boys hurried along. As they ascended the slope, the plump young chap
explained what had happened.
"We're truck drivers for the Eastern Importing Company, and we were
bringing a load of silk into Bayport," he said. "Right at the top of
the embankment we were held up by those two men."
"How long ago?" Joe asked.
"A little over an hour ago. They stepped out of the bushes, each man
masked and carrying a revolver. Bill was at the wheel and I was on the
seat beside him. They made him stop the truck and then they made us get
down into the road. When we did that, one of the hold-up men covered us
with his revolver while the other tied us up. He made a good job of it,
too, I'll tell the world. We couldn't move hand or foot."
"How did they get you down onto the beach?"
"They rolled us down the embankment! Don't we look it?"
The clothes of both men had been badly tattered and torn, while their
arms and faces also gave evidence of the bruises and lacerations they
had suffered in their descent.
"I thought we'd roll clean into the bay," said the other man. "If we
had, it would have been all up with us."
"We'd have been drowned, without a chance to save ourselves," his
companion agreed. "As it was, we came pretty close to the water's edge,
banged and battered from that toboggan slide, and then we just had
to lie there until somebody came along and set us free. At first we
thought some one would surely see us from the road, but as car after
car went by we began to lose hope.
"I was afraid it would get dark and then no one would be able to see
us, even if they did chance to look down this way. It wouldn't have
been very pleasant, staying out on that beach all night."
"Did you see where the truck went to?" asked Frank.
The men shook their heads.
"The hold-up men drove away in it--that's all we know," said one.
"It took us a few minutes to recover our senses after the slide down
the embankment, and by that time the truck was gone. Whether it went on
toward Bayport, or turned around, we can't tell," added the other.
"It certainly didn't pass in the other direction," said Chet.
But Frank was dubious.
"We were down in the woods quite a while, remember," he pointed out.
"It might have gone by during that time."
They regained the road.
"Perhaps we can find the marks of the tires," suggested Joe.
Assisted by the two men, the lads searched about in the dust of the
roadway, but so many cars had passed in the intervening time that all
trace of the truck had been obliterated.
"No use searching now," said the driver. "If you lads will get us into
Bayport we'll report the case to the police."
They abandoned the quest and in a short time the party had arrived
in the city, Frank and Joe taking the two men as passengers on their
motorcycles. At the police station, the hold-up was duly reported and
immediately word was flashed to the police in other cities and to
officers out in the country.
But to no avail.
By nine o'clock that night there had been no report on the missing
truck. It had not passed through any of the three cities at the other
end of the Shore Road, and Bayport police were positive it had never
entered the city. The truck, with its six thousand dollar cargo, had
utterly disappeared.