Swishing his stick he outlined an imaginary road from the top of the cliff back to the sheltered place where his car was standing. Once he hacked away with a large pocketknife a mass of knotted hazel bushes which blocked that projected road. When he had traced the road to his car he smiled. He walked to the edge of the woods and looked up and down the main highway. A car was approaching. He waited till it had passed, ran back to his own car, backed it out on the highway, and went on his northward course toward St. Clair, driving about thirty miles an hour.
On the edge of St. Clair he halted, took out his kit of tools, unscrewed a spark plug, and sharply tapping the plug on the engine block, deliberately cracked the porcelain jacket. He screwed the plug in again and started the car. It bucked and spit, missing on one cylinder, with the short-circuited plug.
“I guess there must be something wrong with the ignition,” he said cheerfully.
He managed to run the car into a garage in St. Clair. There was no one in the garage save an old negro, the night washer, who was busy over a limousine, with sponge and hose.
“Got a night repair man here?” asked Jasper.
“No, sir; guess you’ll have to leave it till morning.”
“Hang it! Something gone wrong with the carburetor or the ignition. Well, I’ll have to leave it, then. Tell him— Say, will you be here in the morning when the repair man comes on?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, tell him I must have the car by to-morrow noon. No, say by to-morrow at nine. Now, don’t forget. This will help your memory.”
He gave a quarter to the negro, who grinned and shouted: “Yes, sir; that’ll help my memory a lot!” As he tied a storage tag on the car the negro inquired: “Name?”