“I’ll risk anybody getting ahead of you, then. My machine is just outside the camp.”
“Come on, Silas,” hailed Andy as they passed on towards the gate.
Andy found a magnificent six-cylinder automobile just outside the camp. He thanked its owner heartily for allowing its use, beckoned Silas to the rear seat, and waved adieu to his employer with the cheery words:
“I’ll be back inside of two hours, Mr. Parks.”
“Say,” bolted out Silas, holding on with both hands as they crossed the railroad tracks and struck a winding country road due north, “isn’t—isn’t this going pretty fast?”
“Oh, this is just starting up,” declared Andy.
“I never rode in one of these before,” said Silas. “Those sneaks won’t get much ahead of this, I’m thinking.”
Andy thought this, too. There was not the least doubt in his mind that Dale Billings and Gus Talbot were already on the trail of the old leather pocketbook. All they could do, however, was to steal their way on some slow freight train. Still, they might induce someone to go for them or with them by faster travel. They might get an automobile, even if they had to steal one. Andy felt that it was pretty hopeless trying to make Dale or Gus respectable. He had intended, in the liberality of his heart, to put them on their feet. Here, the first thing, Dale was acting the part of a sneak and a thief.
It felt good to Andy to get back to his old business once more. Once out on a clear, level road, he made the machine fairly hum. Various ejaculations back of him told that his unexperienced passenger was having spasms. In considerably less than an hour the machine reached Wade. They were soon at the site of the Collins farmhouse.
“There’s the old shed, see?” spoke Silas, as Andy directed the machine across the fields.