It appeared that they had reached a roadhouse with a dancing pavilion and park attached to it, much in favor with excursion parties from the country around. Outside of the place stood a hayrack with four horses attached.
“Horse needs a rest, Warner,” the sheriff declared, “and some refreshment wouldn’t hurt you and me, hey?”
“Nothing for me, Sheriff, nothing for me,” the miserly old fellow was quick to retort. “Of course you can buy what you want—with your own money.”
“Just so. Well, I’ll stretch my limbs a little and sort of see what that jolly crowd is up to.”
The old man kept his tight hold on Dave. He would silence the youth every time the latter tried to talk or reason with him or question him. With low mutterings and chuckles he hinted that the law would see to it that Dave did not again “desert his comfortable home.”
It was fully four o’clock when the sheriff came back to the wagon. He pulled himself up into the seat like an overfed porpoise.
“Just going to break up, that crowd,” he observed, “and having a great time. I wish I was young again. Get up, there,” he added to the horse.
Dave made up his mind that he would be given no chance to escape, at least during the trip to Brookville.
There came a rumbling behind them as the horse was plodding along a narrow country road with a deep ditch on either side of it. Then singing voices broke the silence. The party from the roadhouse was homeward bound.
The road twisted and turned. At its narrowest part, before the sleepy-headed driver could realize it, the great loaded hayrack wagon lumbered by. Its side grazed the inside wheels of the wagon the sheriff was driving.