But Ned, watching from above, saw that there was only one person in the car. Mr. Thomas Q. Collins had been left behind!
"That's strange!" Ned mused. "Why should he remain here? What further mischief has the fellow in mind?"
When Ned returned to the machine he found Jimmie busy polishing the scorched steel work.
"All she needs is new planes!" the lad cried.
"Jimmie," Ned asked, "when you came here yesterday, did the Vixen follow you closely, or did she stand off and on, as seamen say, and take note of your course indifferently? What I want to know is this: Did the driver seem anyway excited when you speeded over this way?
"He followed tight to my heels," replied the little fellow. "Then, when he saw me land, he whirled about and went away."
An idea which seemed almost too good to be true was slowly forming in Ned's brain. Why had the Vixen always followed the Nelson? Why had she spied upon her without in any way interfering?
Again, why had Thomas Q. Collins been left there in the wilderness? Surely there were no accommodations in sight in those valleys—nothing to subsist on, no shelter from the weather.
He might, it is true, have remained out of a spirit of revenge, hoping to punish Ned for his treatment of him, but this explanation did not appeal to the boy. With the Nelson hopelessly out of repair, he could well afford to leave the lads to their fate, as the chances that they would be able to get out alive—being strangers to that country and, supposedly, to mountain work—were about one to ten.
And so, Ned reasoned, there must be some other incentive for the action taken by Collins. He had a subconscious impression that he knew what that incentive was, but hardly dared to whisper it to himself.