“I don’t know him so well,” admitted Neale. “But I am sure it is lucky you did not buy the car. There would have been trouble. Do you know where they went from here?”
“No. They remained over night with us because a storm came up. I sheltered the car in one of our tents. But about a week ago I saw them and the car again,” he added.
“No!” cried Neale, in surprise.
“Yes. I drove over into what they call the Fixville district—it’s beyond Parmenter Lake—to look at a horse. There is a big farm over there that isn’t being worked this year—owned by a man named Higgins. They’re only getting the hay off it. You see, last winter the house burned to the ground and Mr. Higgins, who is an old man, was badly burned and isn’t able yet to take up his work again. He is with friends somewhere. Well,” went on the Gypsy, “the outbuildings and barns were saved. As I drove by the place I saw this freckled chap and that other backing the car into one of the big hay barns. It was just at nightfall. Of course, I don’t know that they stayed there more than one night.”
Neale and Agnes were greatly excited by this story. It seemed as though it were the clearest clue yet discovered regarding the stealing of Mr. Collinger’s runabout. From the Gypsy Neale obtained a very clear and particular account of the place where the suspected men and car had last been seen, and how to get there.
“We’ll just go around that way after we leave the hotel at Parmenter Lake,” declared Agnes. “Why! maybe we’ll find the car right there.”
“It’s too late for May bees,” grinned Neale. “This is July.”
But he had some little hope of tracing the lost car himself, in spite of his fun. However, as Mrs. Heard declared with decision, first of all the party would run on to the hotel at Parmenter Lake where they had rooms and their trunks awaiting them, and there recuperate.
“So much excitement is not good for me, I declare,” said the lady. “I feel it in my legs.”
That puzzled Dot Kenway immensely. Yet she was too polite to ask Mrs. Heard how it could be. Nevertheless, she whispered to Tess: