The man on the hay wagon shouted and waved his arms. The horses reared. The clumsy vehicle presented a barrier directly across the road.
There was only one thing for it. The boys had to take to the ditch to avoid a collision. There was no time to stop.
Frank wheeled his speeding machine to the left, praying for the best. For a moment, he thought he would make it. The motorcycle bumped and lurched, and then it went over on its side and he was flung violently over the handle bars into the bushes ahead.
Behind him he heard shouts, the roar of the other machines, and then two crashes, which came almost simultaneously. Chet and Joe had also been spilled.
CHAPTER II
Circumstantial Evidence
For a moment Frank Hardy lay in the thicket, stunned by the shock of his fall, with the breath knocked out of him. Gradually, he recovered himself and managed to scramble to his feet. His first thought was for the other boys, but a quick glance showed that both Chet and Joe were unhurt, beyond a few bruises.
Joe was sitting in the ditch, looking around him in bewilderment, as though he had not yet realized exactly what had happened, while Chet Morton was picking himself up out of a clump of undergrowth near the fence. In the road, the driver of the hay wagon was trying to calm his startled horses, who were rearing and plunging in fright.
"Any bones broken?" asked Frank of his two companions.