“All the strangers we’ve seen to-day was a cigar drummer,” said one of the shopkeepers. “And he was a fat man and about forty years old.” The other storekeeper had had no strangers in his place.
Hardly knowing what to do next, Dave and Roger returned to the cutter.
“Maybe he went farther than this,” suggested Roger. “We might go on a mile or two and take a look.”
Now that they had come so far, Dave thought this a good idea, and so they passed on for a distance of nearly two miles beyond Bixter. Here the sleighing became poor, there being but few farmhouses in that vicinity.
“It’s no use,” said Dave, finally. “We’ll go back to Bixter, take another look around, and then return to Clayton and home.”
When they arrived once more at the village Dave suggested that he and his chum separate.
“There are a number of these lanes that lead to some back roads,” said Dave. “Perhaps if we tramp around on foot and ask some of the country folks living around here we may get on the track of the fellow we are after.”
The senator’s son was willing, and he was soon walking down a lane leading to the right while 66 Dave went off to the left. Presently Dave came to a barn where a farmer was mending some broken harness.
“Hello! Back again, are you?” cried the farmer, as he looked at Dave curiously. “What brought you? Why didn’t you stop when I called to you before?”
“I guess you’re just the man I want to see,” cried Dave, quickly. And then, as the farmer looked at him in increasing wonder, he added: “Did a young man who looks very much like me go past here to-day?”