“Why, that is the queer part of it. The passenger in the machine jumped out and picked him up. He lifted him into the auto. He didn’t seem to want to go with the man, but they speeded up and I supposed they were going to bring him here, or to the nearest doctor, or the hospital. A police officer came up right after the accident on a motorcycle. He made some inquiries, took some notes and went away again. Just now he came back and said that he could find no trace of machine or boy, and that he had learned that the auto had been driven out of town on the west road as fast as it could go. Don’t you see—kidnapped!”
“I don’t!” cried Randy almost frantically, “Wasn’t it enough that they ran him down, without carrying him away nobody knows where? Oh, I must get straight on his track—I must find Pep!”
“The police didn’t,” suggested the furniture man.
“I don’t care for that—I will!”
“Mebbe I’d better give you my address,” said his visitor. “There’s been several accidents here lately. It’s mostly tourists passing through the town who are reckless about how they drive—rich old fellows who don’t value life or limb, and get out of the way fast as they can when they’ve done any damage. I suppose the man who owns the machine that hurt your friend had heard of how one or two before him had been arrested and fined and forced to pay heavy damages, and just thought he’d grab up the lad and get him and himself out of the way before any investigation was made.”
“It’s shameful!” exclaimed Randy, wrought up now to the highest pitch of excitement and indignation. “Poor Pep! He may be suffering tortures and all those inhuman wretches think about is getting clear of being found out. I’ll find him—I’ll run down his kidnappers and bring them to account, even if the police can’t.”
The excited Randy did not even wait for the furniture man, but ran down the boardwalk and then in the direction of the man’s store fast as he could. There was not much to learn there outside of what he already knew. His next call was at the police station. He was incensed at the indifference of the officers. They had investigated the accident as far as required, they claimed. The injured boy had been taken out of their jurisdiction and that seemed to lead them to believe that it ended their responsibility.
Randy knew the direction the red automobile had taken. He proceeded to a livery garage where motorcycles were on rent, and made himself known. He was well up in running the machine and was soon speeding on the trail of his missing chum, as he supposed and hoped. The west road out of Seaside Park was the best in the section. It ran to Brenton and beyond that to the large cities. There was every reason to believe that the kidnappers, if such they were, would favor a smooth, easily traversed highway over inferior dirt and stone roads that ran parallel.
Randy stopped at the first little town he came to and made some inquiries, but they availed him nothing. Five miles further on, however, he got a clue. Here were crossroads and a “Roadside Rest,” a general halting place for road-men. Several autos were in view, their occupants taking lunch in a pavilion near the hotel or walking about stretching their limbs.
A man who wore a banded cap and a close fitting coat flitted around here and there in an important way, and Randy decided he must be a sort of major domo about the place.