“Mad? He done froth at de mouth!” cried the old servant. “By golly, I wouldn’t like to be de one whut done tied him up after he gits free!”
“Koku would be one of the best fellows in the world to take along on the search for the robbers, Tom,” suggested Ned. “He’ll be so angry he can easily handle half a dozen with one hand—if there should prove to be that many in the gang.”
“Shouldn’t wonder but what there are more than that in the plot,” agreed Tom. “It’s a queer game! But come on. We must help Koku. Where is he, Rad?”
“Over by Lake Carlopa—dat place where you and me used to go fishin’.”
“You mean Chestnut Point?”
“Dat’s de place, Massa Tom.”
“A lonely region,” remarked the young inventor, as he started the runabout. “They couldn’t have picked out a better—or rather, a worse—place to leave poor Koku. How’d you happen to think of looking there, Rad?”
“Well, Massa Tom, I t’ought maybe Koku might go there of his own se’f. Onct I kotched a big fish there, an’ I was tellin’ him ’bout it. He always said he could kotch a bigger fish’n whut I did. So I t’ought maybe he was tryin’ to beat me, an’ maybe de robbers didn’t tuk him after all. So I looked an’ I done see him tied to a tree!”
The run to Chestnut Point did not take long, and, following the directions of Eradicate, Tom guided his machine along a lonely road. They had traversed this a short distance when Ned cried:
“Hark!”