"Thank Heaven!" muttered the Professor, wiping his forehead.
"Why?"
"Don't you understand? By the luck of things, they've taken their medicine!"
"A quart apiece!" I gasped. "We shall find them dead drunk on the road."
Uncle Jake delivered himself--
"It's my idee that they've jest filled up three bottles. There's a rubbish heap outside."
"We must follow them," said the Professor, grimly. He was no horseman, and San Lorenzo was six-and-twenty miles away.
"Yes," said Uncle Jake.
As they approached the barn, the Professor whispered to me--
"There is nothing to regret. If I can get these boys into the County Hospital before to-morrow morning, I shall have done a splendid night's work. Pick me out a decently mannered horse."