“We’ll do just that,” agreed Dick, “and maybe I won’t be glad to set eyes on the old reprobate again.”
“I, too,” said Tom, “he’ll be a sight for sore eyes.”
“That’s what,” agreed Dick, “but if we’re going to get started at that unearthly hour, we’d better turn in early to-night.”
This proposition being self-evident, it met with no opposition, and shortly afterward they retired, leaving an early call at the office.
They were awakened punctually the next morning, and tumbled hastily into their clothes. They did not even stop for breakfast, arguing “that there would be plenty of time for that later on.” In a very short time they presented themselves at the garage, and the party in charge, following instructions left with him by the owner of the place, turned the automobile over to them.
Dick took the wheel, and they were soon spinning rapidly through the quiet streets of the town. Once outside the limits, Dick “cracked on speed,” and they went along at a fast clip. They passed right by the place where Bert had encamped at a distance of several miles, and before long came to a village, where they inquired if Bert had been through. No, the villagers said, he had not been through there, but they had heard that a motorcyclist had been seen riding on the railroad embankment, and there could be little doubt that the rider was Bert.
“You must have passed him somewhere,” concluded one of their informants, an old native whose tanned and weather-beaten face was seamed by a thousand wrinkles. “P’raps he stuck to the railroad tracks clean through, an’ is in Boyd by this time.”
But Dick shook his head. “If he’d followed the tracks right along he’d probably have reached town last night,” he said, with an anxious look in his eyes. “I’m afraid he’s left the track for one reason or another, and lost his way.”
“Is there any road near the track that he might have used?” queried Tom.