"That's so," agreed his companion. "And so the only thing to do is to travel a bit both ways. The path, or road, or whatever you call it, is plainly enough marked here, though you can't always pick out the tire marks. They show only on bare ground. The grass doesn't leave any tracks that we can see, though doubtless they are there.
"But as for thinking this car is the same one the marks of which you saw on the lonely moor, the night you heard the call for help—that's going too far, Tom Swift."
"Yes, I realize that. Of course there must be more than one car with tires which have square protuberances. But it's worth taking a chance on—following this clew."
"Oh, sure!" agreed Jackson.
"The only question is, then, which way to go," returned Tom.
They settled that, arbitrarily enough, by going on in the direction they had started after leaving the stranded airship. They followed a half-defined path, and were rewarded by getting occasional glimpses on bare ground of the odd tire marks.
Through a devious winding way, now hidden amid a lane of trees, and again cutting across an open space, the path led. They saw the marks often enough to make sure they were on the right trail, and in one place they saw several different patches of the odd marks.
They went on perhaps half a mile more, when they came to a lonely road and saw where the car had turned from that into the wood-lot, as Tom called the place where his craft had settled down.
"Look!" cried the young inventor to Jackson. "They've been here more than once, and have gone along the road in both directions. They seem to have used this turning into the lot as a sort of stopping place."
This was plain enough from an examination of the marks in the sandy soil of the road, which was one not often used. The automobile with the queer, square marks on the tires had turned into the lot, coming and going in both directions.