In a flash the man had jumped aboard the electric vehicle, and, as fate would have it, the motorman happened to be behind time. No sooner was the queer stranger in the car, which had not even stopped for him, than the knight of the controller handle swung it clear around in an endeavor to keep up to his schedule, and with a whizz the car darted off.
"Wait! Wait!" yelled Frank, waving at the conductor. The latter shouted something, what it was the lad could not make out. Andy rushed up and joined his brother.
"Missed him; didn't we?" exclaimed the younger lad ruefully.
"Yes, worse luck," replied Frank. "He always seems to get away from us."
"There'll be another car along in fifteen minutes, boys," said a kindly fisherman passing along.
"It wasn't the car we wanted, it was someone on it," answered Frank.
"Fifteen minutes will give him such a start that we can't follow him."
"Was he a pickpocket?" asked the fisherman.
"We don't know what he was," said Andy. "Come on, Frank, we'll go back and talk to Jim Hedson."
"I was thinking of taking the next car, and keeping after this fellow," spoke Frank, with his usual determined manner.
"What would be the use?" asked Andy, who generally took the easiest way. "He might get off anywhere along the line, and we could hunt all day and not find him. It would be time wasted."