He prepared himself for the trip, and was about to start from his house, where he had taken Mr. Wakefield’s machine, when Bob and Jerry came along. They had wheeled their motors to their houses, and brought Ned’s with them.
“Are you off?” asked Jerry.
“Just ready to start,” was the reply.
“You ought to be able to get the parts in any automobile store,” said Jerry. “The only bad feature of the trip will be coming home. I wish I was going along.”
“Well, I haven’t any time to lose,” said Ned, “so here goes!”
He leaped into the saddle, started the machine off by means of the pedals and soon was puffing down the road.
The start was made about half past five o’clock, on a pleasant afternoon. The sun shone through a hazy mist, and, though it had been warm, it was cooler now. Because it was of an earlier pattern, Mr. Wakefield’s machine was not as speedy as any of the boys’, and Ned realized he would have to be longer on the journey than if he had his own fast motor.
“But I’m in luck to be able to get any machine at all,” he said to himself.
For the first ten miles Ned had no trouble, as he was familiar with the road. He had been riding over an hour when he came to a small village which, he learned by inquiry, was thirty miles from the big city.
He rode out of the little town, and then, coming to a place where several roads branched off was puzzled which one to take, as there was no sign posts. No house was near and no one seemed to be traveling.