"What you s'pose it is?" asked Vi, as she pattered along with her twin brother, holding his hand.
"I don't know," answered Russ, who was running with Rose. "This is no time to ask a lot of questions, Vi."
"I didn't ask a lot. I asked only one," retorted the little girl. "And I think you might answer that."
"I would if I knew the answer," said Russ, smiling a little; "but I don't. We'll run along and see what's happening."
"Maybe somebody is trying to take the auto," suggested Tad, who had made good friends with the four little Bunkers.
"I guess they couldn't take Captain Ben's car unless they put on a new wheel and did a lot of other things," said Russ. "It was pretty badly smashed and they couldn't have fixed it so soon."
"No, I guess not," agreed Tad. "Anyhow, something's happening."
This was true enough. As the children ran out of the gate and down the road after the man who had given the alarm, their father, and Captain Ben, they could hear through the quiet, still country air a loud shouting around the bend in the road where the auto was in the ditch, about a quarter of a mile away.
As the little Bunkers and the others hurried away from his house Mr. Brown was heard to say:
"I knew it! You can't tell me autos are safe! Something's always happening to 'em! Give me a horse every time!"