Burke shook his head. "I inquired at the nearest house ahead. I had to do it in order to telephone. They knew nothing."
"But they are gone," persisted Lockwood. "There is the bottom of the bank. You can see that they are not here."
Kennedy had taken the light and climbed the bank again and was now going over the road as minutely as if he were searching for a lost diamond.
"Look!" he exclaimed.
Where the Whitney car had skidded and gone over the bank, the tires had dug deep into the top dressing, making little mounds. Across them now we could see the tracks of other tires that had pressed down the mounds.
"Some one else has been here," reconstructed Kennedy. "He passed, then stopped and backed up. Perhaps they were thrown out, unconscious, and he picked them up."
It seemed to be the only reasonable supposition.
"But they knew nothing at the next house," persisted Burke.
"Is there a road leading off before you get to the house?" asked
Kennedy.
"Yes—it crosses the line into Massachusetts."