“Ha! an auto, I bet,” pursued Billy. “Coming at a stiff pace. There’s the hum of her! No other sound. Gee! she’s spinning the miles behind her. Hear her purr!”
Billy rose to his knees and peered down the road. He was still in the shadow and could not be seen. There was a flash of light at the far bend—but it was no lamp. Billy knew a car had turned the corner, but it had not a single headlight lit.
Then, to his amazement, he saw that there were figures in the car—one at the wheel, the other in the tonneau. And it was a somewhat larger car than Billy had expected.
A car without a light had no business on the road in the first place; that fact was suspicious. And when the car halted directly before the crouching boy, Billy was indeed amazed.
“Is this the spot?” asked the man on the front seat, turning to speak over his shoulder.
“I—don’t—know,” returned the other, in a low voice. “It looks so different by night.”
“Hang it! you and I were past here on Saturday.”
“Well! we went so fast that I couldn’t tell what the place looked like. I know that Sudds lives here somewhere. Ha!”
“What’s the matter?” asked the man at the wheel, whom Billy noticed was rather small.
“I believe this is the spot where that auto went over the bank; eh?”