"It came from down the road," answered Tom, not completing the sentence he had left unfinished. "They dragged the log up to the foot of the hill and left it. Then the auto went down this way." It was comparatively easy, for a lad of such sharp observation as was Tom, to trace the movements of the vehicle.
"Den if it's down heah, maybe we cotch 'em," suggested the colored man.
The young inventor did not answer at once. He was hurrying along, his eyes on the telltale marks. He had proceeded some distance from the place where the log was when he uttered a cry. At the same moment he hurried from the road toward a thick clump of bushes that were in the ditch alongside of the highway. Reaching them, he parted the leaves and called:
"Here's the auto, Rad!"
The colored man ran up, his eyes wider open than ever. There, hidden amid the bushes, was a large touring car.
"Whose am dat?" asked Eradicate.
Tom did not answer. He penetrated the underbrush, noting where the broken branches had been bent upright after the forced entrance of the car, the better to hide it. The young inventor was, seeking some clew to discover the owner of the machine. To this end he climbed up in the tonneau and was looking about when some one burst in through the screen of bushes and a voice cried: "Here, you get out of my car!"
"Oh, is it your car, Andy Foger?" asked Tom calmly as he recognized his squint-eyed rival. "I was just beginning to think it was. Allow me to return your wrench," and he held out the one he had picked up near the log. "The next time you drag trees across the road," went on the lad in the tonneau, facing the angry and dismayed Andy, "I'd advise you to post a notice at the top of the hill, so persons riding down will not be injured."
"Notice—road—hill—logs!" stammered Andy, turning red under his freckles.
"That's what I said," replied Tom coolly.