"Don't get excited about the third boy," Will replied. "We'll find him when the right time comes!"
"There's Ventner!" exclaimed Tommy as the detective came rushing down the platform. "Of course the good, kind gentleman would want to bid us farewell!"
"I'd like to crack him over the coco!" exclaimed Sandy.
"I'll bet he's got some kind of a fake story to tell," suggested Will.
"He looks like a man who had been working his imagination overtime!"
"News of the two boys!" shouted the detective as he came up smiling.
CHAPTER X
THE BOY IN THE "EMPTY"
"Didn't I tell you," whispered Will, "that he is there with a product of his imagination? If you leave it to him, the two boys we're in search of are somewhere on the Pacific slope!"
"He must think we're a lot of suckers to take in any story he'll tell!" whispered Tommy. "A person that couldn't get next to his game ought to be locked up in the foolish house!"
"I've just heard from a railway brakeman," Ventner said, rushing up to the boys with an air of importance, "that the two lads you are in search of were seen leaving a box car at a little station in Ohio. I don't just recall the name of the station now, but I can find it by looking on the map! It seems the lads left here on the night following their departure from the breaker, and stole their passage to this little town I'm telling you about."