We made a dive for the place where the car had been stuck, and studied the road. Poetry let out a gasp and said, “He’s awfully smart, that guy. Look at these wide tire tracks, will you?”
I looked, and Poetry was right. First I looked at how narrow they had been before they got stuck in the sand, and then I looked at them after they’d gone on up the road, and they were almost half again as wide.
“Letting out that air, increased traction,” Poetry said, “but he can’t run on them half flat very far or very fast. He’ll have to stop at the first gas station that’s open, and get some air. Come on! Let’s get to a telephone quick, and call the Bemidji and the Pass Lake police and have all the gas stations watch for him. Give them the license number, and I’ll bet the police will catch him!”
With that, Poetry whirled around, his flashlight in his hand and we were starting to run up the sandy lane to where the fire warden lived, when I noticed something shining in the grass at the side of the lane.
“Look!” I said, “Shine your light over here a minute.”
I stooped over to pick up whatever it was, thinking it might be a scarf pin or something the kidnapped girl might have had, but shucks, it was only a piece of glass. I picked it up, though, and was going to throw it away when Poetry grabbed my arm and stopped me and said, “Hey, wait! Let me see it!”
“It’s a piece of broken glass,” I said, but let him look at it up close with his flashlight. “Sure,” he said, “it’s a clue.”
“How could a piece of broken glass be a clue?” I asked.
“’Cause it isn’t stained with weather or anything, which means it hasn’t been lying out here very long,” Poetry said, and tucked it in his pocket.
It wasn’t any time to argue, but I thought his detective ideas were nearly all imagination.