“Well, you needn’t ask that,” was Jerry’s answer. “Of course we’re with you. And if this turns out a fizzle we won’t say we told you so, Chunky. It’s worth taking a chance on, though if we do find this is the same crooked-nosed chap we saw at the time of the fire, it isn’t going to prove that he robbed the Frenchman. If he got all that valuable stuff he wouldn’t be here—he’d be in the city having a good time.”
“We’ll have to be careful about making an accusation, I guess,” agreed the stout lad. “But if we find he is the same chap we saw we could telegraph to the police of Cresville and ask if he was wanted there. If he is, the police there could take the matter up with the police of this place. That’s the way they do it.”
“Are there any police here?” asked Ned, looking around with a smile, for they were in the midst of a country that looked too peaceful to need officers of the law.
“Oh, they always have constables, deputy sheriffs or something in these villages,” said Jerry. “That part will be all right, Bob. Go to it.”
And “go to it” Bob did. As soon as the army had come to a stop and the supper mess had been served, the three motor boys sought and received permission to go off for a stroll. It was early evening, and they must be back within the guard lines at ten, they were told, but this would give them time enough.
Having traveled about as much as they had, the three friends had acquired a good general sense of direction, and they had noted the location of the highway down which Bob had said the crooked-nosed man had driven.
It was their plan to go back to this point and make some inquiries of any resident they might meet in regard to the existence, on some neighboring farm, of a man with a nose decidedly out of joint.
“His defect is such that it surely will have been noticed,” said Bob. “He’s a marked man if ever there was one, and he ought to be easy to trace.”
As the three friends left the camp, armed with written permission to be absent until “taps” that night, Jerry, looking across the field, where the dog tents were already up, said: