[CHAPTER IV.]
A CHASE AFTER A RASCAL.
“After him!” cried Jerry. “Catch the miserable thief!”
“You and Bob chase him, whoever he is!” called Ned. “I’ll stay with the old miner here in the hut. He may be badly hurt.”
“Hurry back to the auto!” shouted Jerry. “We can catch the thief in that.”
As he spoke he looked ahead. A dark figure crossed the patch of moonlight in the rear of the hut. Then came a sound of a motor-cycle being started, and soon the chug-chug of the machine on the road told that the thief was escaping that way.
Jerry and Bob ran to the auto. In a trice Jerry had the engine cranked up. Bob jumped in, followed by his companion, and they put off down the road after the fleeing motor-cyclist, whom the moonlight plainly revealed.
“He can’t get away from us!” exclaimed Jerry. “We will overhaul him in a jiffy!”
But Jerry reckoned without knowing who he was after. He did not dare put on full speed, while the cyclist rashly had his machine going as fast as the explosions could follow one after the other. Besides, the thief had a good start with his light apparatus.
But Jerry determined to make the capture. He threw in the second speed gear and in a little while had lessened the distance between the auto and the motor-cycle.