"Let us walk around the town and see if we can learn anything," suggested his big brother.
They walked down the main street of Plankville from end to end, questioning several people they knew. At last they got word that a mysterious automobile had passed through the town about midnight of the day Josiah Crabtree had broken from jail. But who had been in the touring car nobody could tell.
"He may have escaped in that," declared Dick.
"And if he did, that man who came to see him at the jail had the car," added Sam.
"Just what I think," cried Tom. "Well, if he got away in an auto there is no use of our looking for him here," he added, with a sigh.
Nevertheless, the boys hung around Plankville for an hour longer. Then they got aboard of the Dartaway, and with Tom at the wheel, and Dick with a pair of field glasses to his eyes, swung in several circles about the neighborhood.
"No use," declared the oldest Rover boy, at last. "It is getting late. We might as well return to college. We can do nothing here."
"Haven't we got time to go to Hope?" asked Sam, a bit wistfully.
"Well, I don't know," answered his big brother, just as wistfully.
"Let us take time—Doctor Wallington didn't want us to hurry back," put in Tom. "I think the girls ought to know about this, so as to be on guard, in case old Crabtree tries to molest them again."