"How you t'ink ve vas goin' to find him?"
"This car hasn't been abandoned very long, nor very many miles back on the road. You see, the road is straight for only a few miles, and the car, with the wheel lashed as it was, could only travel along the straight track. If it had been abandoned before it was put on the straight track, it would have been in the ditch."
"You know more in a minit as I in a year know, Matt," said Carl, heaving a long breath, "und dot's all aboudt it. Ve vill look for der owner, und I vill shdill be jeerful efen oof he dakes der car und makes me valk by Tenver, yah, so. It vas some pig mysderies, anyvay; py chimineddy, it vas der piggest vale oof a mysdery vat efer come my vay."
Motor Matt agreed with Carl. Somewhere along the straight stretch of road ahead of them he felt sure the key to the mystery would be found.
And what would it reveal?
[CHAPTER III.]
THE MAN AT THE ROADSIDE.
Back past Hop Loo's adobe Matt drove the car, and on into the open country. For five or six miles the road ran as straight as an arrow, and was almost as level and smooth as a boulevard. Ahead of them, as they moved forward, the boys could see the marks left by the wheels when the car had passed over the road headed toward town. No other pneumatic tires had left a trail in the dust.
"I bed you somet'ing, Matt," remarked Carl, "dot dis car don'd pelong py Ash Fork."