“Who knows? I am quite confident, because of what my nephew said, that the bundle the thieves got in the car was worthless. I remember his saying: ’Those rascals won’t get what they want unless they tear my car to pieces.’ Now, what could he have meant by that?”
The problem interested the older Corner House girls and Neale very much. Agnes examined the upholstering and the panel-work of the runabout very closely.
“Perhaps Saleratus Joe did find the papers. That’s why the car was abandoned here,” she said to Neale, with a sigh.
“Well, if they found the secret panel,” said the boy, grinning, “they didn’t leave it open so we could find it, did they?”
“You needn’t make fun,” said Agnes. “If I find the papers I won’t tell you—so now!”
“Help yourself,” he returned. “I’m not half so much interested in Mr. Collinger’s affairs as I am in our own car. I hope the factory hustles that casting right along.”
They could not expect it yet, and the remainder of the day was spent in roaming about the farm. The children found the biggest huckleberry pasture any of them had ever seen. Mrs. Heard’s housewifely desires were spurred.
“I do wish these berries were near Milton,” she declared. “I’d can enough of them to last the winter through for huckleberry pies.”
They were getting supper, Gypsy fashion, when the lanky boy with the pony drove up with the answers to the telegrams Neale had sent that morning from the Hickton station.
“Hurrah!” shouted Neale, the moment he read his message. “The thing is already shipped. When does the first train from the south stop at Hickton in the morning?” he asked the messenger.