The moonlight showed a wrecked automobile lying where it had been driven into a little clump of saplings—breaking them off two feet from the ground—and wedged in among the splintered branches. Evidently the amateur chauffeur had in his excitement made a turn at the wrong moment.
“Where’s your robbers?” demanded the farmer.
“They saw us coming and have run away,” declared Pep. “Mister, I want you to help me further and I will pay you for it.”
“What doing?” inquired the man.
“As I told you, those men had stolen a lot of valuables. They were in a little tin box. Just as we were passing over the bridge here I saw my chance to outwit them. I flung the box into the river.”
“What!” exclaimed the farmer.
“Sounds like a fairy story,” remarked his son skeptically.
“You find some more help, so if those fellows show themselves we can beat them off or arrest them,” observed Pep, “and I will prove what I have told you and pay you well for your trouble.”
“Jabez, go and wake up the two hired men,” directed his father.
“I’m a pretty good swimmer and diver,” said Pep, after the boy had gone on his errand. “Is the water very deep?”