CHAPTER I

QUEER ACTIONS

“What’s the matter, Bob, can’t you crank an auto yet?”

“I sure can!” exclaimed a stout lad, who was bending over in front of a big car, laboriously grinding away at the starting handle.

“Then do it,” advised a tall youth at the wheel. “Turn it over good and hard.”

“Yes, go ahead,” put in a good-natured looking chap in one of the rear seats. “We don’t want to stay here all day, even if it is a nice place.”

“All--right--here--she--goes!” panted stout Bob Baker, as he again turned the crank.

There was only the noise of the flywheel spinning around; a sort of cough and wheeze, but no whirr and throb that told of an explosion of gas in the cylinders.

“Oh, if you can’t get her started let me try!” exclaimed Ned Slade, the lad in the tonneau. “I thought you’d had practice enough, Bob.”

“That’s right,” remarked Jerry Hopkins, the lad at the wheel. “Keep at it, Bob, it’ll take off some of that extra flesh.”

“Oh, you----!” began the fat lad, and then he stopped to gaze in some astonishment at his chum, Ned, who had started to leave the rear seat, with the evident intention of trying his hand at the crank. For on Ned’s face there was a curious look as he gazed over Jerry’s shoulder at the switch, just under the overhang on the dashboard of the car. Then a broad grin illuminated Ned’s features, to be succeeded by a hearty laugh.

“Huh!” ejaculated Bob. “I don’t see anything to go into spasms over. If you think it’s so funny come out here and try it yourself. I never saw such a cranky car. It went all right a while ago, and now----”

“It’s all because you don’t know how to crank it--that’s the reason it’s cranky,” began Jerry. “I’ll show you----”

“No--don’t--Oh, ho! Sit still--Oh, me! Oh my! Wait until I get my breath--Oh dear!” and Ned with one hand on the steersman’s shoulder held his own side with the other to help repress his mirth.

“Well of all the----” began Bob, half in anger.

“No wonder he couldn’t crank it!” cried Ned. “You haven’t got the switch on, Jerry. There’s no current--Oh dear! and to think that Bob was breaking his back and never getting a spark----”

“Was that the trouble?” cried Jerry.

“It sure was,” replied Ned, and, stepping on the footboard he reached to the dash, and snapped on the switch which connected the batteries with the spark plug in the cylinder heads. “Now try it, Bob!” he called.

“Not much!” exclaimed the fat lad, with great determination. “I’m done--finished! If you fellows don’t know enough to throw on the switch after all these years of running a car, and then expect to sit there and grin your heads off while I break my back cranking, you’re mighty much mistaken--that’s all I’ve got to say. You may think it’s a joke, but I don’t! I’m through with you,” and turning on his heel, after flashing a look at his two chums, Bob Baker started off down the road afoot.

“Here, where are you going?” called Jerry, after him.

“Home!” was the short answer, “and I’m not going out with you fellows again in a hurry!”

Ned and Jerry looked at one another. It was the first time in a long while that there had been any serious difference among the three chums.

“Oh, come on back!” urged Ned, for he saw that Bob was very much in earnest. “Come on back.”

“Not on your life!” snapped Bob. “I’m through.”

“We didn’t mean anything,” went on Ned, starting after his friend. “But it was so funny to see----”

“Ha! Ha! Joke!” sneered Bob. “If it’s so funny write it out and send it to the humorous column. You won’t get another chance to laugh at me, though.”

“He’s mad, all right,” murmured Ned.

“Looks so,” agreed Jerry. “Oh, I say Bob!” the tall lad went on, “come on back. Honest, I didn’t know the switch was off. Come on back. It’s a good ways to Cresville, and we’ve only just started the run. Come on back, and you can steer, and I’ll crank up. And if we get a puncture Ned and I’ll put on a new tire, and you won’t even have to get out of the car. I mean it!”

The figure, stalking down the road in anger, was seen to hesitate the merest trifle. But Bob did not turn around.

“That almost fetched him,” said Jerry. “Say something, Ned.”

“We’ll stop at the first place we come to, and get a bite to eat, even if it isn’t noon,” shouted the lad who had discovered the disconnected switch. “That ought to do the business,” he added, in lower tones.

It seemed to be, for Bob halted, appeared to be considering the matter at length, and then turned around.

“Does all that go?” he demanded.

“Sure,” chorused Ned and Jerry.

“And about me not having to help sweat putting on a tire?”

“That’s right,” Jerry assured him. Bob came slowly back.

“All the same,” he spoke as he climbed into the tonneau, “it was no fun cranking a car with the switch off.”

“We agree with you,” said Jerry, winking at Ned with the eye concealed from his offended chum. “But it wasn’t intentional,” he added, soothingly, as he went to the crank. “Go ahead, Bob, you can steer if you want to.”

“I don’t know as I want to. If we get a puncture you might blame it on me.”

“All right, then I’ll take the wheel,” went on Jerry, as the motor throbbed and hummed when he had turned the crank, for the car, though a good one, was not a self-starter.

“But everything else goes,” proceeded Bob, as the machine glided smoothly down the road. “And we stop at the first place where we can get sandwiches and ginger ale. I’m hungry.”

“You always----” began Ned, but Jerry stopped him with a nudge in the ribs.

“Keep your foot on the soft pedal,” he advised, in a whisper, for the two lads were on the front seat, with Bob in the rear. “No use getting him ruffled again.”

The three chums had taken advantage of a fine spring day to take a ride in their auto about the country near Cresville, a town not far from Boston. They had not gone far before they came to a delightful spot, where a roadside spring offered a chance to drink, and they took it. In stopping the car, Jerry had thrown out the switch, and when, with their thirst quenched, they wanted to start off again, the incident I have just narrated took place.

But now everything seemed to have been smoothed out, though Bob thought to himself that he had gotten a little the best of the bargain. He felt sure his chums had played no trick on him, in having him crank up without the switch being on, for it frequently had happened before that one of them forgot to make the electrical connection.

“But I get out of that tire work,” thought Bob, as the car swung along; “and they won’t guy me when I want something to eat. I guess we’re even.”

“Going to any place in particular?” asked Ned of Jerry, as the tall lad swung the machine around a curve.

“No, I just thought we’d run out for ten miles or so, and get back in time for lunch. Or we can stop at a roadhouse, and spend the whole day touring if you like. I was going----”

“Look out!” suddenly yelled Bob, for Jerry had turned to speak to Ned, and his eyes were not on the road ahead. “Look out or you’ll go over that dog!”

There was a scurrying in the dust as a yellow cur rushed from a roadside house, directly at the auto. Bob spoke only just in time, for Jerry, with a quick turn of the wheel, sent the car to one side with a dangerous swerve, but avoiding the dog.

The beast, with sharp barks, seemed to enjoy the confusion he had caused. Jerry, with muttered comments on all such dogs in general, and this one in particular, was swinging back into the road again, when there came a sharp hiss of air, and the auto settled slightly on one side.

“Oh, rats!” cried Ned. “A puncture!”

“It was that dog’s fault!” exclaimed Jerry, wrathfully. “I hit that board with a nail in it when I turned out for him. We ought to make the man who owns him pay us for a brand new tire.”

“That’s right,” agreed Ned, while Jerry guided the disabled car beneath a big tree, that they might take advantage of the shade in substituting a new inner tube for the punctured one. The dog, evidently thinking that the lads were stopping to take revenge on him, fled into the house, his tail between his legs.

“Here’s where I watch you fellows work!” exclaimed Bob, with a chuckle.

“All right! What we said goes!” declared Jerry. “Come on, Ned. Get busy.”

The car was soon jacked up, and the shoe taken off by Jerry, while Ned got out a new inner tube and proceeded to partially inflate it ready to slip it in in place of the damaged one.

“Say, this shoe sticks!” said Jerry, who was working hard. “Here, Ned, give me a hand.”

“Can’t for a minute. I’ve got to fill this tube.”

“Aw, say, I’ll help!” exclaimed Bob, who, all the while, in spite of the promise of immunity made to him, had fidgeted while sitting there comfortably while his chums worked. “I can’t be as mean as all that.”

“I thought not,” remarked Jerry, and then, with the help of his fat chum, he soon had the shoe off. The three made short work of changing the tire; and a little later they were on their way once more.

“There’s an eating place!” exclaimed Bob eagerly, as they swung up toward a roadside stand. “We got some dandy sandwiches there once.”

“And you haven’t forgotten it,” chuckled Ned. “All right, I’ll stand treat. Slow up, Jerry.”

A little later the three were drinking cool ginger ale and munching the bread and meat.

“I notice,” said Bob, as he casually took a bite, “that you fellows are eating with about as good an appetite as I have, in spite of the fun you made.”

“Oh, I admit I was hungry,” said Ned, as he held out his glass.

“Same here,” added Jerry. “It was working on that tire, I guess.”

It was nearly noon when they neared Cresville again, after swinging about in a ten-mile circle. They had greatly enjoyed the little trip, and were discussing whether or not they would take advantage of the following Saturday for a motor boat ride, or for a spin in their airship, since the chums possessed both those means of locomotion.

“I vote for the airship,” said Bob. “We don’t have to look out for punctures, and there’s no danger of getting stuck as in a motor boat.”

“Well, I’d like the boat,” said Ned. “But if you want the airship I’m willing. Noddy Nixon is back in town, though, I hear, and if we start flying he’s almost sure to do the same thing, and generally he manages to camp on our trail, somehow. But maybe we can shake him.”

“I guess so,” put in Jerry Hopkins. “We’ll--Hello!” he cried, suddenly interrupting himself, as the car swung around a curve, and approached a railroad crossing. “What’s going on at the depot?” he asked.

“There’s a crowd all right,” asserted Bob.

“An accident, I guess!” exclaimed Ned. “The through train must have just passed along, and hit someone! Put on speed, Jerry!”

The tall lad did so, and the car shot ahead.

“No, there doesn’t seem to be anybody hurt,” spoke Bob. “I can’t see any ambulance. The crowd seems to be watching two men who--by Jinks! What _are_ they doing?” he finished.

“I see ’em,” added Ned. “They seem to be digging between the rails.”

“And yet they don’t look like section hands,” spoke Jerry. “They seem more like Westerners. Look at their big hats!”

“And red shirts,” remarked Bob. “Yet they’re grubbing between the ties for all they’re worth. That’s queer.”

“And see how excited the crowd is,” added Ned.

“Yes, and look at Mr. Hitter, the freight agent!” cried Jerry. “He’s hopping up and down like a hen on a hot griddle. We must see what’s going on!”

“Surest think you know!” agreed Bob. “Maybe it’s a lawsuit against the railroad, and they’re tearing up the tracks.”

With the boys eagerly looking ahead, the auto approached nearer the throng that surrounded two men whose strange actions seemed to fascinate those in the throng. Then Jerry uttered a queer cry.

“Look!” he fairly shouted. “One of those men is Jim Nestor, who is in charge of our mine in Arizona! What can he be doing East? Fellows, there’s something queer going on here!”