"Locate and identify the car."
Ted called Mr. Truax up on the telephone. The commission merchant had read about the express robbery, and had connected the man in the red car with it, but promised to say nothing about it until Ted had had an opportunity to unravel the mystery.
Ted lay awake a long time that night thinking the matter over, and in the morning awoke with a plan in his mind.
"Well, hev yer determined what ter do erbout ther red car?" asked Bud at the breakfast table. "I'm shore gittin' sore at myself fer a loafer, sittin' eround here doin' nothin' but eat an' look at ther things in ther stores what I can't buy."
"I've got a scheme that I'm going to try," answered Ted.
"What is it?"
"I'm going to run that car all over this town until I get some of the train-robbing syndicate anxious about it and to following it. Then I'm going to get on to their place of doing business and their methods."
"Wish yer luck," was Bud's cheerless comment.
Bud had been out wandering restlessly around the streets all morning, and Ted was writing letters. When he got through he thought about the missing trunk, and concluded that he would go to the Union Station to see if it had been received.
The words of warning in the note not to go on the street alone were clear in his memory; but this he took to mean at night, for in a crowded street in the daytime he could see no danger.