“You talk as though you expected to go along with us, Gusty?” he observed.
“And to tell the truth I’m hoping you’ll ask me to hang on behind,” the other instantly replied. “You see, I’ve ridden a motorcycle before and I guess my shoulder isn’t so lame but what I could keep my seat. Those men treated me about as mean as they knew how, and I’ve been telling myself all along that, if only I could have a hand in their apprehension, it’d go a great way to evening things up. Do you reckon now, Hugh, that if you took me on behind it would go?”
His whole manner was so imploring that even had the patrol leader felt inclined to hesitate he must have found it very difficult to disappoint Gusty. It chanced, however, that Hugh knew more about a motorcycle than either of his chums, or both together for that matter. And he believed that if the other boy had the nerve to keep his seat he could take him along.
“I’m willing to make the try, anyhow, Gusty,” was what Hugh told him.
“Oh! thank you, thank you a dozen times, for you’ve made me feel ever so happy!” cried the Merrivale boy. Apparently he had made a clean sweep when he threw that pride of his overboard, for once again he reached out and shook the hand of Hugh, as though determined to look on him as his best friend. “And there’s one other thing you ought to know, because it may cut some figure in the chase.”
“What might that be?” asked Billy, evidently more or less relieved to know the patrol leader would not be wanting him to head back over their trail so as to carry the startling news of the hold-up to the authorities in distant Oakvale.
“I only took on five gallons of juice at the inn, you see,” continued Gusty, eager to advance any item, however small, that might have a bearing on the successful pursuit of the two bad men, “and I don’t believe there could have been much aboard at the time, either. So they couldn’t run more than twenty miles before it would give out. If they fail to take on a new stock, perhaps we might find my runabout abandoned on the road somewhere.”
“Either that, or wrecked,” suggested Monkey, “because every fellow who thinks he can run a car doesn’t succeed. I know, because it cost an uncle of mine a pile of hard cash to get his machine saved from the scrap heap after I’d turned over at the foot of a little hill where there was a sharp curve and lots of loose sand. See that scar under my hair—that makes me think of how hard a car can kick, every time I look at it when I’m brushing my locks.”
“If we mean to start this chase, we’d better be making a move,” Billy advised.
“The crown of the hill seems to be just a little way off,” said Hugh, “and so I think we ought to push our machines up the rest of the way, and mount for a coast down the grade. Once we reach the bottom where there’s a chance to find some moist clay, we’ll try scout tactics, and get a clew about that mended tire you spoke of, Gusty. Come on, boys!”