"I can hazard a guess," exclaimed Commodore Wingate, "for the Sunnyside railroad station. If they make a train they may escape us yet."
"Je-rus-a-lem," exclaimed the chief of police, a man named Applegate, pulling out a huge old-fashioned silver watch, "there's a train due in a few minutes now; if we don't make it, they'll slip through our fingers!"
Faster and faster the car roared forward and suddenly as it shot round a curve the little station of Sunnyside came in sight. Tied outside it was the buggy and horse of farmer Curtiss and on the platform stood three figures that the party in the auto made out at once as Jack Curtiss, Bill Bender and their unsavory ally.
The road took a long curve at this point and while they could see the station the pursuers had the mortification of knowing that it would be some minutes before they could reach it. As the car bounded forward, swaying like a rocking ship over the rough roads, there came a sudden sound that made Rob's heart bound.
The long whistle of an approaching train.
Faster the machine shot onward roaring like a battery of machine guns going into action. Its occupants leaned forward with eyes glued on the group on the platform.
The trio of whom the autoists were in pursuit had by this time realized that they were the objects of the chase and were nervously staring up the track down which was fast approaching the train by which they hoped to escape.
The auto was still a good two hundred yards from the station when the train rolled in and, hardly stopping, started to move out again.
"Stop! stop!" yelled Chief Applegate, at the top of his lungs, and the others waved their hands frantically. The engineer looked back at them with a grin.
"Some more idiots missed their train, Jim," he remarked to the fireman, "I might have waited for them but we're five minutes behind schedule time now."