CHAPTER VIII
ON WATCH
“Oh, Dan! what is it?” cried Mildred, dismounting from her ownmotorcycle, and running to the gap in the wall through which the lad wasleaning, seeking to peer into the gulf. “What has happened?”
“Somebody has knocked down our derrick. I hope the auto has escaped,”muttered Dan.
He ran back to his machine, lifted off the storage battery lamp, andcame with it to the verge of the precipice again. Its bright ray flashedinto the depths revealed one thing at least—the auto was still wedged inthe tree limbs. The heavy timbers had missed it in their fall.
“Oh, Dan! the car is there,” cried Mildred, “And can you ever get it upto the roadway—do you believe you can?”
“We won’t be able to get it up here if many such tricks as _this_ areplayed on us,” grunted Dan. “Ah! here’s Billy.”
The remainder of the party came up swiftly and stopped their cycles.
“What’s happened?” cried Billy, first to reach his brother’s side.
Dan pointed to the post, chopped off at the ground. All could see it.
“The car—is it hurt?” questioned Billy.
“I don’t think so,” replied his brother.
“The rascal! I’d like to pitch him over that wall myself,” declared theyounger Speedwell, in a passion.
“Who is it? Who did it, Billy? Do you know?” were the questions fired atthe impulsive lad.
Dan touched his brother’s arm, and Billy accepted the warning.
“I won’t say anything more—now,” Billy said, mysteriously. “But you cansee what a mean trick it is—just as we got the derrick in place, too.”
“I believe you!” cried Jim Stetson. “I skinned a knuckle and pretty nearbroke my back helping you. I’d give something to get hold of the fellowwho did it, myself.”
“Couldn’t be old Somes, could it?” asked Wiley Moyle. “He was almost madenough to bite you fellows, to-night.”
“Nonsense! Josiah wouldn’t do such a thing. He has too much respect forthe law,” said Monroe Stevens.
“I think it is very fortunate,” put in Mildred Kent, earnestly, “thatthe person—whoever he was—did not manage to utterly ruin the automobile.Suppose he comes here before you can get the derrick erected again, andthrows these boulders down upon the car?”
“He’ll not do that!” declared Dan, firmly.
“How do you know?”
“Because either Billy or I will be on this spot until we get the car outof the place. We have too much money invested in the machine to have itwrecked.”
“Right, Dannie!” declared his brother. “And I’ll stay here now. You goon home, ask father to help you with the milk in the morning, and thencome down with the team and another post as early as you can. If there’sany way of getting the car up, we’ll get at it without further delay.”
It was so arranged, and Billy sat down beside the break in the wallwhile the others motored away. His own machine he carefully hid in aclump of bushes, and proposed to keep awake until morning so that themean-spirited person whom he suspected of cutting down the pole, shouldnot return and do any damage to the motor car.
Billy heard dogs barking in the distance—they seemed to start far downthe road toward the Mayberry farm at which he and his young friends hadspent such a pleasant evening. First one dog, and then another, joinedthe chorus, the sound of which drew nearer.
“Somebody coming along the road,” thought the lad. “They’re coming fastand stirring up a racket as they come. Somebody is traveling fast, forthe houses are a good way apart, and the dogs join each other in hailingthe passer-by in one, two, three order.”
“Ha! an auto, I bet,” pursued Billy. “Coming at a stiff pace. There’sthe hum of her! No other sound. Gee! she’s spinning the miles behindher. Hear her purr!”
Billy rose to his knees and peered down the road. He was still in theshadow and could not be seen. There was a flash of light at the farbend—but it was no lamp. Billy knew a car had turned the corner, but ithad not a single headlight lit.
Then, to his amazement, he saw that there were figures in the car—one atthe wheel, the other in the tonneau. And it was a somewhat larger carthan Billy had expected.
A car without a light had no business on the road in the first place;that fact was suspicious. And when the car halted directly before thecrouching boy, Billy was indeed amazed.
“Is this the spot?” asked the man on the front seat, turning to speakover his shoulder.
“I—don’t—know,” returned the other, in a low voice. “It looks sodifferent by night.”
“Hang it! you and I were past here on Saturday.”
“Well! we went so fast that I couldn’t tell what the place looked like.I know that Sudds lives here somewhere. Ha!”
“What’s the matter?” asked the man at the wheel, whom Billy noticed wasrather small.
“I believe this is the spot where that auto went over the bank; eh?”
The chauffeur stood up, evidently trying to peer into the darknessbeside the road. Billy’s heart beat loudly. He was so near that he couldhave almost reached out his hand and touched the rear wheel of the car.
There was something about this automobile that awoke in Billy Speedwella feeling of suspicion. It was too dark for him to see the color of theautomobile exactly; but he was apprehensive.
“Sudds’ place is farther along,” exclaimed the chauffeur, sitting down.“_He_ ought to be on the lookout somewhere. We’ll run on slow, and thenback again if we don’t pick him up.”
“All right,” growled the second man.
They were both looking forward and away from Billy. The boy, shakingwith nervousness, but willing to risk much to prove to himself that hissuspicion was right, crept out of the shadow behind the car. The machinestarted and Billy leaped lightly up behind, and clung to the back of thelarge, folded canopy top of the tonneau.
The car rolled on smoothly—almost silently; her engine throbbedsteadily. They turned the bend and Billy knew that the dwelling of AbramSudds, a granite mansion set high on the bank beside the road, was insight, although he could not see it.
The car purred on. Billy clung desperately, afraid to drop off now, forhe would be revealed the instant he came out of the shadow of theautomobile’s folded-back top. Impulsively he had jumped into trouble,and without a thought for the wrecked auto he was watching, and in whichhis brother and himself had invested five hundred dollars!
But the mystery of this car, and the men in it, had taken hold of himstrongly. As they ran slowly past the Sudds property Billy glanced aboutfor the man whom the two in the car evidently expected.
There was no one in the road. They ran on to the next house and therethe chauffeur turned slowly. There was a street light here and its dimradiance shone for an instant on the side panels of the car as itturned. Billy, craning his neck around the corner of the car to look,saw the light flash upon the shiny varnish.
The car was painted maroon! There had been _two_ maroon cars in theneighborhood of Riverdale within the past few days. Billy was very sureindeed that this car did not belong to Mr. Briggs!