CHAPTER V

CAMPING ON A STRANGE ROAD

Jubilant and expressive though it may have been, Paul Jones' "wow," was very far from being all the Auto Boys had to say concerning the telegram received. In general they shared Paul's mirthful feelings. With a very human kind of pleasure they let their minds dwell upon Gaines' sullen wrath and Pickton's chagrin and disappointment.

The condition of bewilderment and utter discomfiture which would be natural to Freddy Perth was also easily imagined. In short, it was with real delight that the boys pictured the Trio confronted by the discovery that they had been out-generaled; left like a squad of raw recruits hopelessly drilling around the field, looking for the beginning of the battle that was all over long ago.

"Oh, I guess maybe they don't find _their_ cake is dough, and they couldn't eat it if they kept it," chuckled Paul, blithely, but really somewhat twisted as to the quotations he meant to employ. "But anyhow, the thing for us to do is keep moving. We're getting too much noticed. It'll lead to more advertising than we'd really like to have."

This reference to a considerable number of pairs of eyes now scrutinizing the travel-stained car, its touring and camp equipment and the owners thereof, caused Billy, now at the wheel, to drive slowly up the street.

Dave MacLester, who had gone into a livery stable close by to inquire about the roads to the westward, came out just in time to see the machine move off. Not guessing Billy's intentions, which were to go only to the next corner above, as a good place to turn, he dashed frantically after the car. He sprang aboard and climbed into the tonneau breathlessly.

"Don't seem to be in any hurry at all!" he ejaculated, witheringly. "Go straight ahead. Turn at the first corner. It's the best road west. Other one's all torn up for four miles out, they said."

Billy had put on speed at once, when Dave was safely in, and now he let the speedometer mark up to twenty-five on a fine stretch of brick pavement, clear of car tracks and broken by few intersecting streets, a speedway not to be resisted.

The net result of the flying start and apparent haste was not a little comment on part of those who had gathered near the car. Even the men in the livery stable ran out to see and learn what the commotion was all about and the town marshal sauntered up just a moment later.

Now the marshal of Sagersgrove was a self-important old fellow named Wellock. His uniform consisted principally of a badge of great size and a greasy blue coat with brass buttons. He wore old and rusty black trousers, very baggy at the knees and much frayed around the bottom.

With a solemn and knowing look Marshal Wellock made a few inquiries concerning the car which had just passed out of sight and its occupants. Then he made some mysterious entries in a pocket memorandum, the generally soiled appearance of which was not at all unlike his own. These movements alone were enough to make a deep impression upon the crowd which had now collected; but accompanied as they were by Mr. Wellock's knowing and extremely mysterious air, the whole effect was to produce in the minds of those gathered near the profound conviction that the four strange boys were nothing short of bank-robbers in disguise.

Men exchanged looks of deep significance as if saying, "I told you so." Women nodded their heads to one another in a way that plainly indicated their certain knowledge of the guilt of the young strangers, whatever might be the crime laid at their door.

Observing the unlimited notice he was attracting, Marshal Wellock's importance increased. Preserving still his deeply mysterious air, he walked on to the telegraph office and went in. What he learned there apparently did not cause him to change his very good opinion of himself and of the great power vested in him, for he was more darkly mysterious than ever as he returned. Indeed, his whole bearing was such as to make him decidedly red in the face, as he frowned savagely, in keeping with his idea of the great personage which he himself felt and, he believed, everyone else must undoubtedly consider him to be. What he thought he knew about the four boys would have made a long story. What he did know could have been told in a dozen words and none of them to the lads' discredit.

Meanwhile the Thirty still sped on westward. The afternoon was waning and the road was growing bad. Sagersgrove lay far in the rear.

"Don't look to me as if this could be the main route," said Phil Way, thoughtfully noting the brush-grown fields and the poor character of the farmhouses and buildings, becoming more and more infrequent as they progressed.

"Oh, it's the road all right. It'll be better going soon," MacLester answered; and as the latter himself had obtained the information respecting the route, Phil said no more.

Mile after mile slipped to the rear, but slowly now, for the road was a constant succession of deep ruts, miniature mountain chains and great, half-dried holes of mud. The late June sun was going down. Blackbirds flew in noisy flocks from one to another of the dense thickets growing in frequent and extensive patches as far as eye could reach over the low land at either side of the wretched way.

"Well, if this _is_ the road, we better go where it isn't," muttered Billy Worth, his arms beginning to feel the effects of driving over the painfully distressing course.

"Oh, stop your growling!" Dave answered a little savagely. "This road will be all right when we get to the high ground where the trees are yonder! And by the Old Harry! Why should you hold me responsible? Never knew it to fail, anyhow, that whoever it is that half breaks his neck and nearly gets left behind, to dig up the road statistics for a trip or any part of one, is from that minute blamed right and left for every hole that's found and for every stone that's struck."

In which observation young Mr. MacLester was not at all wrong. Identically the same weakness of human nature crops out in so many places that none can fail to recognize it. Phil Way saw and felt the truth of Dave's remarks at once.

"Does look better on ahead. Can't expect good going all the time," he said. It was a way of his. He had turned aside and prevented storms which might have grown to serious proportions among the four in just such manner time upon time.

Nevertheless, the promised improvement did not come with the higher places to which the rough trail in due time led. Two parallel ruts among the grass and low underbrush were all that now remained to indicate a road of any sort. Now, too, a thick woods, without so much as a fence between, bounded the course on both sides. The sun was lost to view, the late twilight of a June night was closing in. For nearly two hours not a human habitation had been seen.

Away to the east stretched the swampy brush-grown country that had bordered the line of progress for many miles. To the west there appeared only the scarcely passable path leading deeper and deeper into the forest, hemming in the course on north and south.

Billy had brought the car to a halt. Unmistakably the Auto Boys were as nearly lost as one can well be on a public highway--(but there are many just such)--of a prosperous and wealthy commonwealth.

"Anyhow it makes me think that I always was fond of white meat," chirped Paul Jones, trying to put a cheerful countenance upon a truly depressing situation.

"If you don't mind a suggestion, Jones, I'd say that it's better not to talk of what you aren't likely to get," put in Phil Way, a little soberly. "Just some of that ham and bread and butter and beans sounds good to me. So if Billy will make some coffee we can go into camp pretty comfortably right here. In the morning we can go back, if we can't do anything else."

"Gee! I always did like chicken, though!" persisted Jones, as if Melancholy had marked him for her own, and there was no remedy for his feelings but the refreshment he mentioned.

"Here, too! If we had a good supper, it would brace us all up," Worth put in.

"Shucks! We'll _have_ a good supper," remonstrated Phil, impatiently. "Who'll get some water? Wish I knew where. Come on, Dave! Likely there's a good, clear creek just over this rise of ground. You make the fire, Paul."

So Way and MacLester started off with a bucket while Chef Billy set to work with his provisions. In five minutes Jones had a bright fire blazing beside an old log, where an open, grassy place offered comfortable seats upon the ground, then he began unloading such baggage as would probably be needed. Yet every minute or two he would trot around to where Worth's supper preparations were in progress, sniffing the air, and smiling in a most delighted state of anticipation. "And won't Way be surprised!" he said. "Just listen to me when he comes back."

At last Phil and Dave did come. They had been obliged to go a long way to reach the valley and the stream they knew must be there, and it was now quite dark.

The embers of the fire glowed brightly, offering a truly comfortable sense of companionship. In the bright glow's midst stood the big coffee pot which had seen service many times before, also a tightly covered, black roasting-pan. The two boys put down the bucket, borne between them on a short pole and Way at once busied himself in opening up a big bale of bedding.

"All-I-wants-is-my-chicken," half sang, half chanted Paul Jones.

"Oh, forget it!" drawled Phil, impatiently, creating a laugh--perhaps because it was not often he descended to plain, unvarnished slang. "You've been talking chicken all day. My! that coffee smells good," he added, just to take the rough edge off his speech.

"A nice drumstick and a slice or two of white meat. U-m-m!" sighed Jones, as if he certainly would expire directly if his wish were not gratified.

An impatient growl from Phil elicited another laugh in which Jones joined with greatest merriment. Then in another moment--

"Come on, here! Get your festal board ready!" commanded Chef Billy and directly he drew the black, covered pan from the coals and lifted the