There was nothing bashful about Sammy Pinkney. He demanded and received all the credit due him.
Nor did Agnes and Neale begrudge him the honor—and certainly not Mrs. Heard. The discovery of the stolen car was sufficient to make Mrs. Heard forget their present discomforts; while Neale and Agnes felt that their suspicions of Saleratus Joe and the ugly man had been proved true.
“The Gypsy king told us the exact truth,” Agnes said. “I thought he was an honest man.”
“Of course,” Dot said wonderingly. “Wasn’t he a king, even if he didn’t wear a crown and carry a scalper?”
“And won’t Philly Collinger be glad? Won’t he be glad?” Mrs. Heard cried, over and over again.
Meanwhile Neale was going carefully over the recovered runabout; but he could not examine it thoroughly by lantern-light.
“Of course, it broke down or something,” he said. “Or they wouldn’t have abandoned it here. Just as soon as the farmer came for some of his hay he’d have found the car. Saleratus Joe couldn’t have intended to leave it here for long unless it needed repairing. That is, it doesn’t seem as if he would.”
“He may come back here—he and the ugly man—any time!” whispered Agnes in his ear.
“Sh! nonsense!” commanded Neale. “Anyway, we have Tom Jonah. I’ll give the car a thorough going over when I come back from the railroad to-morrow.”
The excitement occasioned by Sammy’s discovery kept them all awake longer than usual. Besides, camping out in this way had not become familiar enough to the party for them to have become used to it. Only on the night they had remained with Luke and Cecile Shepard had they experienced anything at all like this present situation.