“Whoever did that ought to be jailed,” he burst out, when the boys had concluded their story. “And he can’t be very far away, either. This road was clear when I passed over it last night. Jump in and I’ll drive you into town and we can send out an alarm.”
“Not much use of that I’m afraid,” replied Joe. “The man or men may be fifty miles away by this time. But if you’ll give us a hand to get this auto out of the mud, you’ll do us a big favor.”
“Sure I’ll help you,” said the friend in need, whose name they learned was Thompson. “I’ve got a spade right here in the cart. We’ll dig around the wheels a little. Then I’ll hitch a trace chain to the machine and my horses will yank it out in a jiffy.”
A few minutes of work sufficed to clear the wheels. Then boards were placed behind them, the chain was attached to the rear axle, and the horses drew the car back into the road.
It presented rather a forlorn appearance, but the boys cared little for that. What they were far more concerned about was their own bedraggled condition.
“We match the car all right,” remarked Jim disgustedly, as he looked at his own clothes and those of his companion.
“It will never do to let Mabel and Clara see us like this,” responded Joe lugubriously.
“Don’t let that worry you,” laughed their new friend. “Just drive into town and stop at Eph Allen’s tailor shop. It’s pretty early, but Eph sleeps in the back of his shop and he’ll let you in and fix you up in no time.”
This was evidently the best thing to be done, and the young men, after repeated thanks to their newly made friend and with fullest directions as to how to find the tailor shop in question, jumped into the auto and started on the way back to Hebron.
“Old bus seems to work as well as ever,” commented Joe, as the car moved on without any visible evidence of injury.