As they progressed they heard Tad Sobber still crying wildly, and they heard Sid Merrick urging him to run faster.
"I'm stung, too—in about a dozen places!" said the bond thief. "But we mustn't be captured."
"Oh, it is awful!" groaned Tad. "I can hardly bear the pain!" And he went on, clutching his uncle by the arm. Both were indeed in a sorry plight.
But coming out on a road, fortune favored them. They met a colored man running a touring car. He was alone and they quickly hired him to take them to the nearest town.
"We fell into the lake by accident," said Sid Merrick. "We want to get where we can change our clothing."
"And get something for these hornet stings," added Tad Sobber. "If I don't get something soon I'll go crazy from pain."
As the three Rover boys ran towards the roadway Dick saw a big, flat pocketbook lying on the ground. He darted for it and picked it up.
"Merrick must have dropped this," he said. "It's wet, and here is a dead hornet stuck fast to it. Guess the hornets made him forget that he had it."
Slipping the pocketbook into his pocket, Dick ran out on the roadway and looked up and down. But Merrick and Sobber were gone, and what had become of them the boys did not learn until the next day, and then it was too late.
"What's in that pocketbook?" asked Sam, after the hunt had come to an end for the time being.