At the home of Alexander Hipp it was learned that he and Alfred Earnest were picking cherries at a farm three miles beyond the Forks, on the main road. Without trouble Billy and Paul found them. The work with the cherries was nearly over for the day and the Auto Boys gave a hand that it might be finished quickly. Glad of a chance for an automobile ride, Hipp and Earnest had readily agreed to visit the Griffin lockup.
Alfred had the seat beside Billy, who was driving. “My brother,” said he, “thought you fellows made a mistake when two of you went away to Albany to look for your machine. I told him about your plan, last night. He wished he had seen you to talk it over because he figures you ought to have gone toward Buffalo.”
“Because he says it’s fairly certain the people who had this Torpedo just switched to your car. They came from the east and was headed west to begin with. Naturally they wouldn’t go back the way they had just come from.”
“We thought of that, but our car didn’t go through Griffin,” Billy answered. “Willie Creek is sure of that. It must have turned back east again at the Forks.”
Earnest argued to the contrary but, seeing there was nothing to be gained by the discussion, Worth simply let him talk. It was strange how many people had advanced theories regarding the car’s disappearance. Indeed so much discussion and gossip had come to the ears of the boys, and so little real help had been given them, save by Mr. Creek, that it is little wonder mere talk was becoming annoying.
Coster, the only occupant of the village prison, was not a little surprised when he once more answered Chief Fobes’ “Here, you! Step up!” upon seeing four boys confronting him. He leaned with hands upon the steel bars as he had done the day before.
“Good, honest automobile grease on your hands, mister,” remarked Billy Worth, noticing the fellow’s fingers and especially his black nails.
Coster quickly put his hands down but volunteered no remark. Then, as if he feared being suspected of a desire to conceal something, he seized the bars again as before.
“He’s the man we saw,” said Alex Hipp, when with Chief Fobes they all had reached the refreshing outer air. “At least I think so.”