"They're the kindest gentlemen I ever met," laughed Frank; "we only asked for a lift to town, and they've gone and made us a present of the whole rig."
"Say, mebbe they forgot something back there?" suggested the other, scratching his head as he tried to solve the mystery connected with the panic of the two occupants of the buggy, and their precipitate flight down the road over which they had so recently come, and in the direction of Clifford.
"One thing seems sure; they ran as if frightened," said Frank, seriously.
"Now what are we going to do about it?" queried his chum. "Have we got the nerve to get in here and drive away with another man's rig? Say, I bet you they took us for a couple of highwaymen trying to hold them up! They never even let me finish what I was going to say. I remember now I did hold out my hand after that driver let fly at me with his old whip. Perhaps they thought I was aiming a pistol!"
Lanky's voice took on a vein of awe. Evidently the peculiar adventure had made a deep impression on the tall boy.
"That was just what I thought," remarked Frank.
"And if we take the buggy now they'll get us arrested for stealing it. I'm tired enough to want to ride, but I guess I'm not that leg weary. Come on, Frank, and let's get along. This sort of thing gets on my nerves. Let's cut for home."
"Wait. I haven't quite done figuring it out yet. I've got a sort of notion that there's something crooked about those two chaps," returned the other, declining to move, even when Lanky pulled at the sleeve of his coat.
"Crooked! Whatever do you mean by that? It's us that look like pirates, holding two honest farmers up on the king's highway. Crooked! See here, Frank, open up and let me see what notion you've got surging around in that brain of yours."
"How do you know they were honest farmers? Did they look like it? You heard them shouting out to each other as they galloped down the road, dodging as if they expected to have a shower of bullets follow after them? Well, stop and think of it, did it sound like the language of two honest tillers of the soil?" demanded Frank, as he turned his companion around so that they faced each other again.