"Old Rube am I?" sputtered Biff, feeling that the law had been insulted in his person, "jes' fer thet yer under 'rest."
"What for?" demanded the driver of the red car angrily.
"Fer running daown and grievously wounding a man and then speedin' off without stoppin' ter see if you'd killed him dead or what all. That's what fer."
The driver of the red machine lost his blustering tone.
"Why, there's some mistake," he stammered, his face very pale, "I—er—we—er—that is, we didn't run anybody down."
"Oh, yes, you did," said Jack. "We saw you, and what's more we've got the man you struck right here in our car. You're a fine pack of cowards to run off like that. If we hadn't happened along he might have lain there for hours before help came."
"You saw us!" gasped the driver of the car, losing his bravado completely. "Well, I might as well admit we did run a man down. But we didn't think he was badly hurt and so we put on all speed to rush into town here and get a doctor for him. We'd have been here sooner only one of our tires punctured."
"Thet's a dern good story," said the chief, "but you'll hev ter 'splain that ter ther squire. Come on with me ter ther court-house. Too bad fer you thet them Chadwick boys had some sort of a do-funny dingus on their sky buggy that talks through the air, otherwise you'd hev got clar' away."
The man had, by this time, got out of the car which they halted at the side of the street. A crowd of curious villagers gathered and were staring at the scene and the actors in it.
At Chief Biff's words the driver of the red car flashed an angry look at the boys. His companions looked equally vindictive.