In these days it had become such a common sight to meet groups of boys clad in running togs, and sprinting along the country roads, that neither driver paid much attention to the bunch that loped easily onward.
"There's where the Mechanicsburg road joins this one," Sid had said, as they passed the junction point; but there was no reason why they should stop; though Fred did find himself wondering whether, if he examined the ground very carefully around on that other turnpike, he would discover such a thing as a footprint, with the sole patched.
"If it was done by Mechanicsburg fellows," he remarked, "I reckon they'd have come out here then, and gone along the road to borrow Toby's white horse with the covered wagon. It must have been that last which drew them; because, you see, they could hide inside, and nobody would think they were carrying off a fellow."
"We're getting pretty close now, Fred," remarked Sid; "suppose you slacken up, and give Semi-Colon a chance to get his wind. He's nearly done for."
"Ain't neither!" snapped the game little fellow, stubbornly; "c'd keep it up—all morning—if I—had to."
But Fred immediately stopped running, falling back into a walk. He was looking ahead along the road.
"There's a boy just passing that opening yonder, and coming this way," he remarked; "and strikes me he doesn't look like a regular buck-wheat farmer's boy."
"Where?" demanded Sid, eagerly, and immediately adding; "Ginger! if it ain't that Wagner, the Mechanicsburg fellow who always puts up such a stiff fight in baseball, football and the rowing contest. Now whatever in the wide world d'ye think he can be doing here, three miles and more from home?"
"Oh!" said Fred, drily, "perhaps they've heard the news up there, and some of their boys have started out to see about earning that hundred dollars reward. It might have been telephoned up, you know."
"But all the same you don't believe that, Fred!" Corney exclaimed.