Two or three other men, half dressed, had now appeared on the scene, the boys never knew from where. They were too excited. Peanut and Art dashed down the path, the rest following, and led the way toward the stalled motor.
“They can’t use the car,” Peanut panted back over his shoulder. “They’ll have to beat it on foot!”
The pursuing party was going rapidly, but Peanut was running faster than the rest. He was now fifty yards ahead. He suddenly heard the engine of the motor start.
“They’ve got that wire back!” he thought. “But they can’t go far on flat tires.”
He yelled back at the rest to hurry, and at the sound of the yell, he heard the car start down the road. It was gone when the rest came into the open space!
“We hacked the tires to ribbons,” Art panted. “They’re on bare rims.”
“Go back to the house, Tom, quick,” said one of the watchmen. “Get the Flume House by ’phone, and have ’em put a guard across the road there, to stop every car and every person that comes down. We’ll get a car out, and follow ’em.”
Everybody now ran up the road again, meeting more half-dressed men on the way.
“Where on earth did you kids come from, anyway?” asked somebody for the first time.
“We were camping down near the road by the Flume,” said Art, “and we heard ’em stop their car—woke us up——”