After receiving this information, Dave and Roger took a walk around the town, stopping at several of the stores and making a number of small purchases just for the sake of getting into conversation with the storekeepers. From one of these they learned that the man who had driven the car had come in for some supplies, including some cigarettes.
“Yes, he bought six packages of Turkish cigarettes—all I had,” said the storekeeper.
From this man they learned that there was a regular public garage in the place with a machine shop attached.
“Let us go over there. Possibly the fellow with the car stopped for gasoline or oil, or to get something fixed,” said our hero.
The garage was a short distance up a side street, and they found the man in charge sitting in a little office with his feet on a desk and smoking a corncob pipe. They stared at this man for a moment in amazement, and then both burst out:
“Horsehair!”
“Eh? Wot’s that?” cried the man, and swung his feet down from the desk and leaped up, taking his corncob pipe from his mouth as he did so. “Well now, ain’t this jest wonderful!” he ejaculated. “Dave Porter and Roger Morr! Who would ‘a’ thunk it!”
“And who would have thought of meeting you here, Horsehair?” cried Dave, shaking hands vigorously, quickly followed by his chum.
“Why, we thought you were still driving the stage-coach at Oak Hall,” remarked the senator’s son.
For the man they had run across so unexpectedly was indeed Jackson Lemond, the man who for years had driven the stage-coach and worked around the stables at the boarding-school. Because of the number of horsehairs which continually clung to his clothing, the pupils had never known him by any other name than Horsehair.