"Have you got the suitcases and the rest of the stuff, Bill?" asked King.
"Yes, they're all in back there."
"All right, then, let her go."
Darkness was just falling as they started, and at first, their pace was very slow, as the road was too rough for any but the very slowest speed, at which a car could be run. In about twenty minutes, they came to the end of the woods road and the car turned into a much smoother highway, and Reed sent her forward at a lively clip.
"Now, kid, you get down on the bottom of the car till it gets a little darker," ordered King, and Bob had to obey.
They continued in this way for half an hour or a little more, when King said, "I guess it's dark enough now; you can get up on the seat again, and I'll take that rag off." As soon as this was done, Bob strained his eyes to see if he could tell where they were, but it was too dark to see much, and he was unable to so much as guess their location for some time. In about an hour, however, they passed a large house, which stood very near the road, and he at once recognized it as being but a few miles from Oakland. He was well acquainted with the road, as he had several times driven his father's car to Boston.
Reed was running at about twenty miles an hour most of the time, and instead of passing through the towns, he choose roads, for the most part, which led around them. They lost considerable time in this way, but Bob figured that they, would probably get to Portland before daybreak.
About one o'clock, they were passing over a particularly rough piece of road, when, bang, went one of the rear tires. "Hang it all, there's a blowout," growled Reed, bringing the car to a stop. "But it won't take long to slip on the extra rim."
While they were waiting, Bob noticed that King did not watch him quite as closely as he had been doing, and he managed to slip his hand into his pocket and take out one of the notes he had written. In less than fifteen minutes, Reed announced that the job was finished, and just as they were about to start, Bob, carelessly hanging his hand over the edge of the car, let the note fall to the ground, unnoticed by either of the men. Nothing more worthy of note happened, except that he managed to drop a second note as they passed through the little town of Brunswick, and at about half past four, just as the dawn was beginning to light up the East, Reed drove the car into the yard of a house standing well back from the road.
"Here we are," he announced, and King at once gave a peculiar whistle, which was soon answered by the raising of a window on the second floor.