“Yes, gone. Look, there’s not a sign of it.”
“That’s right,” said the stableman; “looks like that chu-chu cart had flown away. Wall, if it’s in this town it won’t take long to find it.”
The stableman, who the boys now found out was also mayor, at once ordered out several men with instructions to search for the missing car, but they all reported half an hour later, when the town had been thoroughly searched, that not a trace of it could be found.
In the meantime a search had been conducted for old Mr. Joyce, but he also had vanished as mysteriously as the auto.
“What can have become of them?” exclaimed Frank, despairingly. “Without the auto and our supplies we cannot go any further.”
At this juncture a man came rushing up with a report that searchers had found the tracks of two autos, both going out of the town over the Pintoville road.
“Pintoville is where Luther Barr is staying,” cried Frank.
“Then you can depend upon it,” rejoined their friend, the mayor, “that that is where your auto and the old man have gone.”
“But why should they want to kidnap old Mr. Joyce?” demanded Frank.
“You’ll have to ask me an easy one,” answered the mayor, picking up a straw and sucking it with deep meditation.