"I am sure I don't know. Perhaps he was going to abduct Dora—or
Mrs. Stanhope."
"If he was going to do that alone, he would have had his hands full."
The two boys advanced, but with great caution. They peered into the woods and behind some of the larger rocks, but discovered nothing.
"That is the second time we have lost our game to-day," remarked Tom soberly. "First it was Dan Baxter or somebody else, and now it is Josiah Crabtree."
"It must have been Baxter who tried to wreck the stage. He and old
Crabtree always did hang together."
"If they are stopping anywhere in Cedarville we ought to put the police on their track."
"I'll do that sure. We can easily hold both on half a dozen charges—if we can catch them."
CHAPTER VI
AN INTERESTING LETTER
But to catch Josiah Crabtree was not easy. The former teacher of Putnam Hall was thoroughly alarmed, and once having taken to the woods, he plunged in deeper and deeper, until to find him would have been almost an impossibility. Indeed, he completely lost himself, and when the boys had left the vicinity he found himself unable to locate the road again, and so had to remain in the cold and damp woods all night, much to his discomfort. He could not keep warm, and sat chattering on a rock until daylight.