"Will you look after 'em?" asked Tom, leaving the station to get into his House on Wheels again.
"I sure will, Mr. Swift. And thanks a lot for the tip. I'll spread a net for these scoundrels. Dismal Mountain is going to lose its secret and its mystery. Luckily, there aren't many roads leading down from it. I'll have every one covered. Those fellows will walk right into my trap, and those that don't come down—well, we'll go up and get 'em!" he finished, with a grim laugh.
He hurried inside to send out a general alarm and Tom kept on toward the House on Wheels.
"Where to now?" asked Ned.
"To Chesterport," Tom answered. But there was no enthusiasm in his voice. Ned could guess why. The gossip Tom had heard about Mary Nestor and Floyd Barton was eating at his heart like a canker.
The sun was scarcely above the horizon when Tom and Ned, leaving to the State Police the work of rounding up the bandits in Cunningham's gang, rolled in the House on Wheels up in front of the Winthrop home. There was no stopping now blocks away for fear of wounding the social sensibilities of Mrs. Winthrop.
CHAPTER XXIV
JUST IN TIME
Though it was very early, one of the men about the Winthrop place was already astir, preparing to wash down the front porch with a hose. Tom, followed by Ned, strode up the front walk, and the man, staring at the big House on Wheels which had stopped at the front curb, looked in surprise at the two rather unkempt and disheveled early morning callers.
"I'm Mr. Swift," Tom explained, smiling at the man.