"Yes. I met him at our old farm."
"I should think he'd be afraid to show himself, fearing arrest."
"He's a strange fellow, Nat, and there is no telling what he will do. He has been knocked around so much the last few months that I suppose he doesn't care very much what happens next."
"I don't want to see him. I've got troubles enough without running into Link Merwell," grumbled Nat; and then his train came in and he was off.
During their spare time the boys had studied an automobile road-map of New York State, and especially of the Adirondack Mountains. They had figured out that they would have good traveling nearly the whole of the distance, although there were a few bad stretches here and there to be covered, and also a number of mountains to be climbed.
"But the mountains won't bother us," said Dave, in reply to a question from Luke. "Our car can go up almost any hill, and the Basswood auto is just about as good. Of course we'll have to do some of the traveling on low or second gear."
"The reason I asked was this," returned Luke. "A couple of years ago some friends of mine started to tour the Adirondacks in a runabout. They went up the side of one mountain, and then down on the other. They then found themselves in a valley, and couldn't climb the grade on either side. They tried for two days to get out, and then had to get a team of horses to pull them a distance of several miles."
"We'll watch out that nothing like that happens to us," answered Dave. "We won't go down into any hollow until we know something about how we are going to get out of it."
As both touring-cars were large, it had been decided that Mr. and Mrs. Basswood, as well as Dunston Porter, should accompany the young folks on the automobile trip. As all the baggage had been packed and either shipped forward by express or strapped on the touring-cars, it did not take long on Monday morning to get ready to start. It was a clear and fairly cool day, and a slight shower Sunday night had laid the dust.
"All aboard that's going!" cried Dave, gaily, when the Wadsworth car had been run around to the front of the mansion.