One look into the tonneau showed them that the model had been taken. The lads, although they knew it was useless, searched the adjoining bushes and woods for a trace of Ralph, and wakened the echoes with their shouts. But no trace of the boy or the model could be found. Indeed, they had not really expected success.
It was a bitter moment when, standing by the sign that had worked all this havoc, the two lads looked in each other’s faces and admitted that they had been tricked. Worse still, although they were certain that the men in the yellow auto had done this thing, they had not the slightest clue as to where they had vanished with Ralph and the model.
Jack felt his heart sink. Tom’s face bore a look of utter dejection. What would Mr. Peregrine say? It did not make the burden any the lighter to realize that in a measure the fact that they had left the Flying Road Racer practically alone was responsible for their disaster.
CHAPTER XII—THE RED-BEARDED MAN
For a short space of time the lads were too thunderstruck to speak. Jack was the first to find his voice.
“What on earth are we going to do? How can we ever explain?” he quavered.
“If we hadn’t left the machine alone with Ralph we might have managed to fight the rascals off,” lamented Tom.
“Well, there’s no use crying over spilled milk, as dad says. The thing to do now is to decide on our next move.”
“Shall we go back and tell Mr. Peregrine what has happened?”
“No. There’s a bare chance that we may be able to recover the model and the papers and rescue Ralph.”