"Possibly we have. If that's so, then the runabout can't be even ten minutes ahead of us. Now——"
"Runabout!" yelled McGlory.
He was standing up in the tonneau and peering ahead. The road, at this point, was bordered with heavy timber on both sides, but in half a minute Matt and Burton could each see the vehicle to which the cowboy had called their attention.
It wasn't a runabout, as it proved, but a two-seated "democrat" wagon, drawn by a team, and conveying another party townward—presumably for the evening performance of the Big Consolidated.
McGlory's disappointment was keen. And his feelings, for that matter, were matched by those of Motor Matt and Burton.
Matt halted the automobile and, when the wagon came alongside, asked the driver if he had been passed by a runabout farther along the road.
The party had come five miles on that road and, according to the driver, hadn't been passed by anything on wheels going the other way.
For a space those in the automobile were in a quandary.
"What's amiss?" fumed Burton. "Are we on the wrong track, after all, in spite of your Dutch friend and his paper trail, and McGlory's reading the signs at the monkey wagon?"
Matt suddenly threw in the reverse and began to turn.