“We’re arrested!” he exclaimed.
“What!” gasped the other. “Why, we were not going at all.”
“I know,” said Oliver; “but they’ve got us all the same.”
He must have made up his mind at one glance that the case was hopeless, for he made no attempt to put on speed, but let the young man step aboard as they reached him.
“What is it?” Oliver demanded.
“I have been sent out by the Automobile Association,” said the stranger, “to warn you that they have a trap set in the next town. So watch out.”
And Oliver gave a gasp, and said, “Oh! Thank you!” The young man stepped off, and they went ahead, and he lay back in his seat and shook with laughter.
“Is that common?” his brother asked, between laughs.
“It happened to me once before,” said Oliver. “But I’d forgotten it completely.”
They proceeded very slowly; and when they came to the outskirts of the village they went at a funereal pace, while the car throbbed in protest. In front of a country store they saw a group of loungers watching them, and Oliver said, “There’s the first part of the trap. They have a telephone, and somewhere beyond is a man with another telephone, and beyond that a man to stretch a rope across the road.”