"Why so?" asked Tom.
"Because we left the House right where we could see it from the front steps, and it isn't in sight now. We must have got turned around and come out at the back instead of the front."
"This is the front all right," said Tom in a queer voice. "It's where we went in, but the House on Wheels is gone!"
"Gone!" cried Ned. "It can't be!"
"Look for yourself," asserted his chum. "You know where it was. In plain sight with lights going, as we saw just before we went inside. Now it's gone!"
There was no doubt of it. The House on Wheels had vanished!
CHAPTER XV
ON THE TRAIL
Their hearts oppressed with a sense of foreboding which they could not fathom, Tom Swift and Ned Newton hurried down the broad front steps of the old mansion, out into the wind and rain, and hurried toward the clearing where they had left the warm, lighted, and cozy House on Wheels. For a moment they hoped that perhaps the lighting system had failed and that they could not see the big auto because it was shrouded in darkness.
But as they lighted their way by means of their pocket flashlights and reached the spot, near two large, distinctive trees where they had halted the big auto, there was no question about it. Their car had been taken away! It could not have rolled downhill, for it had been stopped on a level spot, and Tom had taken pains to set the brakes.