Quickly they unpacked the food and assembled around one of the park picnic tables.
“Um! Yum! Chicken sandwiches!” Chet cried gleefully.
During the meal the boys exchanged reports on their morning’s sleuthing. All had tried hard but failed to find any trace of the missing car.
“Our work hasn’t ended,” Frank reminded the others. “But I’m so stuffed I’m going to rest a while before I start out again.”
All the other boys but Joe Hardy felt the same way and lay down on the grass for a nap. Joe, eager to find out whether or not the woods to their right held the secret of the missing car, plunged off alone through the underbrush.
He searched for twenty minutes without finding a clue to any automobile. He was on the point of returning and waiting for the other boys when he saw a small clearing ahead of him. It appeared to be part of an abandoned roadway.
Excitedly Joe pushed on through the dense undergrowth. It was in a low-lying part of the grove and the ground was wet. At one point it was quite muddy, and it was here that Joe saw something that aroused his curiosity.
“A tire! Then maybe an automobile has been in here,” he muttered to himself, although there were no tire marks in the immediate vicinity. “No footprints, either. I guess someone tossed this tire here.”
Remembering his father’s admonitions on the value of developing one’s powers of observation, Joe went closer and examined the tire.
“That tread,” he thought excitedly, “looks familiar.”