“Yes, I suppose so,” sighed the professor. “Well, at any rate, after they had bound and gagged me, and smashed my valuable specimens, to say nothing of the boxes, I heard them drive off, of course taking poor Cromley with them. He, too, was gagged, so he couldn’t talk to me.
“After they had gone I struggled and tried to get loose, but the ropes were too tight. However, I did manage to work the wooden gag partly out of my mouth so I could say a few words and groan, and that I did to the best of my ability.”
“It’s well you did, or we might have gone on and never heard you,” stated Ned.
“Did you come out to rescue me?” asked Uriah Snodgrass.
“No, we knew nothing of what had happened to you,” answered Jerry. “We are on the trail of Noddy, to get Bill back, and we took this road, among others. Can you tell us which way they went?”
“No; I couldn’t see. And I’m sorry, boys, but I don’t even remember how their wagon was headed when I did see them. They might have been coming up this way or going down. I don’t know.”
“I think we’d better keep on the way we’ve started,” observed Tinny.
Before any one else had a chance to express an opinion Bob raised his hand for silence and murmured:
“I hear something coming.”
In the quiet that followed the noise of wagon wheels rattling on the hard road was heard.