"Aw right. We'll be movin'. Maybe another shower by'm'by, an' I sha'n't wanter be out in it."
"We'll go just as fast as you want to," said Tom, hobbling along to the stables. "I won't keep you back, Mr. Blodgett."
"You're lame, I see," said the man, not unkindly. "You kin straddle one of the hosses if you like."
Tom was glad enough to do this, and in a few minutes they were going back over the dark track Tom had come, the harness jingling from the horses' hames, and Mr. Blodgett trudging sturdily along by the animals' heads.
They came to the top of the ridge from which the stalled car had last been seen by Tom. "There are the lights!" he cried.
He was glad to see them. They shone cheerfully in the dark, and he had no idea that the girls were in any trouble.
But when they got down to the bottom of the hill there was neither sign nor sound of the two girls. Tom shouted at the top of his voice. He searched the car all over for some written word. He saw that the girls had carried off only their own personal belongings and nothing else.
What could it mean? Surely no thieves had come this way, or the car would have been stripped of everything portable, and of value. At least, so it seemed to Master Tom. He was not wise enough to suspect that the goods in the car had been left alone to mislead him. The Gypsies had been after bigger game than a few dollars' worth of auto furnishings.
"Come now!" exclaimed Sam Blodgett. "I can't wait here all night. I only agreed to drag the car ter town."
"But where could those girls have gone? My sister and Ruth Fielding?"