CHAPTER XVII
GONE
Along the straight, even way sped the Buick roadster at about thirty-five miles an hour, for automobile inspectors have a partiality for violating the speed laws.
In the car were Inspector Snagg and Inspector Ketchum. They were, in fact, returning to Newburgh after assisting in quite a haul at a likely spot where highways intersected a little north of the scene of the last recorded harrowing adventures. There, each passing motorist had been held up for his driver’s license upon showing which he had been suffered to go his way unmolested. The car came to a stop before the single gate which blocked the right half of the road.
“What’s the matter here? Who put this gate down?” demanded Inspector Snagg. “Whose car is that there?”
“It isn’t exactly a car,” said Townsend quietly, “but it’s mine.”
“You put that gate down? What’s that kid doing up there?”
“He seems to be standing there,” said Townsend.
“I climbed up to reconnoiter and the gate fell down,” Pee-wee shouted.
“The word reconnoiter was too heavy for the gate, it fell down,” said Townsend.