“No; we haven’t seen a sign of him. What can have happened?” exclaimed the lawyer anxiously.
“I’ll bet those rascals are mixed up in it in some way,” cried Jack. “Oh, what can we do to find him?”
“Wait a moment, things may not be as bad as you imagine,” said the doctor.
The words had hardly left his lips before down the road from the opposite direction to that from which the lawyer and Jack had arrived, there came another automobile.
Jack recognized its familiar outlines in a flash.
“The Flying Road Racer!” he exclaimed, and then the next instant, “Tom is in it. Hooray! Where can he have been?”
“And who is that with him?” wondered Mr. Bowler.
“Why—why—it’s a clown!” gasped Ralph, bursting into a laugh. “Why—why,” he exclaimed a moment later, “it’s old Dick Dangler, from Sawdon’s circus, the only man who was kind to me in that whole company; What can he be doing with Tom?”
The Flying Road Racer swept up to the porch, and before its wheels had stopped revolving almost, Tom and Jack were clasping each other’s hands. Ralph, too, was dancing for joy, while, in the background, Mr. Bowler and Dr. Tallman looked on.
Tom’s story was soon told.