“This is a little more exciting than we counted on,” remarked Jerry, as he and his chums entered the hotel to register. “I’m afraid we’ll not get such good attention as Bob thought.”
“Oh, it’s all the better,” was the answer of the stout youth. “They’ll have all the more to eat, with this crowd here.”
“Chunky can argue it any way he likes,” declared Ned. “No use trying to corner him, Jerry.”
“No, I guess not. But I’m hungry enough to eat almost anything.”
As they were turning away from the clerk’s desk, having been assigned to rooms, the boys saw a youth, about their own age, standing near a bulletin board fastened on the side wall. The youth was tacking up a notice and, as he turned, having finished, Jerry exclaimed in a whisper:
“Noddy Nixon! What’s he doing here?”
At the same moment, Noddy, the long-time enemy of the motor boys, saw them. His face got red, and he swung quickly aside to avoid speaking to the three chums.
The last they had seen of the bully was when he started to accompany them back to Cresville, after his disastrous attempt to make money from a Florida cocoanut grove. Noddy was wanted as a witness by the government authorities, in connection with the attempted wreck of a vessel, in which Bill Berry was concerned; but, after the motor boys had rescued Noddy from an unpleasant position in Florida, and he had agreed to return to Cresville, he suddenly disappeared in the night. This was the first they had seen of him since. They had learned that the government no longer desired his testimony.
“Let’s see what notice he put up,” suggested Ned. “Maybe he has lost something.”
They walked over to the bulletin board. There, in Noddy’s rather poor handwriting, was a challenge. It was to the effect that he would race, on the track near the hotel, any automobilist who would choose to compete with him, for money, up to five hundred dollars, or merely for fun.