“Oh, yes, Mother, you are very fine about it, but I know you are thinking how I just shook those tools in your face!” Philip was rather enjoying the joke on himself now. “That chap thought that we’d never notice if he left the tools all right.”
“Drive carefully, Philip, for fear the man did do something to the car.”
“I will, Mother.”
They started down the hill, around curves, across little bridges, where the narrow road like a ribbon wound in and out.
“Suppose the man had trouble again and we should catch up with him,” suggested Betty. “What would we do?”
“Not a thing, Betty,” replied Philip. “He would have a gun. The only way we could really catch him and get our tire would be to get the police after him at some place on the route. You girls need not worry. We are not anxious to take you into trouble. I only want to get on the main road before we have anything happen to a tire.”
“And we are one hundred miles from a town!” said Mrs. Van Buskirk.
“Oh, no, Mother. You are thinking of what I said; but, remember, I mentioned villages. It isn’t that far from a place where we could stay, and I think that it is only a few miles from a village where I could get a tire, or have something fixed if necessary. See, we are in sight of the main road now.”
Philip had scarcely spoken when there was a loud report—then a second.
“There are the tacks, Philip,” said Campbell. “The villain’s plot is bared!”