The Auto Boys' Vacation Part 5

that's all he does know about your automobile. What's more, it stands to reason, too. From any standpoint of the law ye can pick or choose, if he took your auto, what could he have did with it?"

"Why has he been so interested, part of the time, anyway, in finding out if there's a man named Smith, or anybody, looking for him?" Billy asked.

"They all act that way, pretty much. It's only once in a while that they give up anything by makin' 'em believe as there's a party lookin' for 'em; and of course every tramp knows other tramps."

"Maybe so," replied Worth, thoughtfully, "but I do believe your Mr.

Coster is not what exactly you call a 'b.u.m.' Even if he doesn't know anything about our car, there's some other matter on his mind and he is a lot more worried about it than he wants us to guess. What he has been trying to do was to pump me, without saying anything that would give me his reasons for doing it, and without telling me anything of any consequence. Why, he's an _awful liar!_"

Billy's show of wrath in his closing sentence made Chief Fobes laugh boisterously. "Liar?" said he when he could catch his breath. "Did you expect he'd be anything else? I tell ye both," and his eye took in both Billy and Paul, "you might just as well forget this man. We'll have most ten days yet to make a charge of larceny against him for stealin' the basket. If there's anything to be had out of him we'll get it. All's you can do is have them East Side fellers (Hipp and Earnest) come around here sometime and see if they can identify this Coster as the man they seen on the South Fork."

"We might run out and see him right now," Paul suggested.

Billy agreed and the two were soon at Creek's garage. It was a delightful day for driving. The car's motion was cool and pleasant though the sun beat down with unusual warmth even for June.

At the home of Alexander Hipp it was learned that he and Alfred Earnest were picking cherries at a farm three miles beyond the Forks, on the main road. Without trouble Billy and Paul found them. The work with the cherries was nearly over for the day and the Auto Boys gave a hand that it might be finished quickly. Glad of a chance for an automobile ride, Hipp and Earnest had readily agreed to visit the Griffin lockup.

Alfred had the seat beside Billy, who was driving. "My brother," said he, "thought you fellows made a mistake when two of you went away to Albany to look for your machine. I told him about your plan, last night.

He wished he had seen you to talk it over because he figures you ought to have gone toward Buffalo."

"That so? Why?" Billy asked.

"Because he says it's fairly certain the people who had this Torpedo just switched to your car. They came from the east and was headed west to begin with. Naturally they wouldn't go back the way they had just come from."

"We thought of that, but our car didn't go through Griffin," Billy answered. "Willie Creek is sure of that. It must have turned back east again at the Forks."

Earnest argued to the contrary but, seeing there was nothing to be gained by the discussion, Worth simply let him talk. It was strange how many people had advanced theories regarding the car's disappearance.

Indeed so much discussion and gossip had come to the ears of the boys, and so little real help had been given them, save by Mr. Creek, that it is little wonder mere talk was becoming annoying.

Coster, the only occupant of the village prison, was not a little surprised when he once more answered Chief Fobes' "Here, you! Step up!"

upon seeing four boys confronting him. He leaned with hands upon the steel bars as he had done the day before.

"Good, honest automobile grease on your hands, mister," remarked Billy Worth, noticing the fellow's fingers and especially his black nails.

Coster quickly put his hands down but volunteered no remark. Then, as if he feared being suspected of a desire to conceal something, he seized the bars again as before.

"He's the man we saw," said Alex Hipp, when with Chief Fobes they all had reached the refreshing outer air. "At least I think so."

"Thinkin' don't go much from the standpoint of the law," the officer answered. Neither Hipp nor Alfred Earnest could state positively that Coster was the person they had seen on the lonely road that rainy afternoon. Billy and Paul drove them to their respective homes in the Torpedo.

"So we are knocked out of all we thought we had found yesterday,"

observed Jones, droopingly, on the homeward way.

"Maybe not," Worth returned, deep in thought. "Do you see how the clutch pedal of the car has pressed against the side of the sole on my shoe till the leather is curved in half an inch or more?"

Paul said he did. Looking at Worth's shoes, then his own, he added: "That's nothing new. Mine is the same way."

"I know it is," said Billy. "And the sole of Coster's left boot is marked in the same way, too."

Paul saw at once the significance of this fact, the evidence that Chief Fobes' prisoner was an automobile man. "Billy," he said earnestly, "we are gettin' some warm!"

Try as they would to "get busy," Worth and Jones found themselves accomplishing nothing as the afternoon wore away. Mr. Fobes was becoming quite impatient over their inquiries and they thought best not to visit him. Willie Creek was busy with some urgent repair work. There appeared no course to pursue--nothing to do--but wait. Impatient for word from Phil or Dave, restless in their inactivity, the two boys sat for a long time at the large open window of the hotel. A stranger entered.

As the young man--he seemed to be twenty-one or two, perhaps--sat down near the boys, he remarked that he was waiting while his car was undergoing some repairs at the garage. A conversation concerning automobiles was the most natural result imaginable. Put two or more motor enthusiasts together and invariably they will soon be talking.

The newcomer was from Texas, he said, touring through to New York. His brother was with him but had remained at the garage. The substance of the Auto Boys' story was told the stranger as the conversation progressed.

"Look here," said the young man in his flippant, breezy fashion, "you fellows are too easy by half. You've let that garage keeper and his friend, the town policeman, pull you all around. The garage man--Creek, you call him--sends you on a wild goose chase here and there. The village cop steers you off with no help worth speaking of. Seems mighty suspicious, don't it? I just might mention that there was a garage in a town near us that made a business of changing over stolen cars. Would switch 'em all around, in an old barn behind their shop, change wheel sizes, change engines, fix 'em up so no man could tell his own car if he saw it. Then they slipped 'em off to the big cities and sold 'em. Now, right there, you've got a real tip, you take it from me!"

It is the meanest kind of wickedness to direct suspicion against any person without good cause. Also it is criminal. Paul Jones and Billy Worth realized this. Yet was it not true, as the stranger said, that Willie Creek and Chief Fobes were great friends? And had not Mr. Creek more than once suggested that it would be much cheaper for the boys to take a train home and conduct their search from there, paying no hotel bills while awaiting developments?

"I've always thought Willie was our friend," muttered Worth when he and Paul were alone again, "and I shall think so; but one thing is sure, we've got to keep our eyes open."

Mr. P. Jones, Esquire, as Paul sometimes referred to himself, was of the same opinion. Also he added: "It looked mighty funny to me the way old Fobes paid so little attention when Scottie was shot. Willie Creek didn't seem to mind it, either, so much as I'd think he would."

Oh, it is a sad, bad business to sow seeds of suspicion! It is but all too likely they will grow! Always there is something which seems to confirm the suspicious thought. And yet, on the other hand, it must be admitted that dishonesty and falsehood are not infrequently concealed by an appearance of friendliness on part of those who practice them.

And now, whether Willie Creek was a true friend or a false friend, we soon shall see for another night has pa.s.sed and another day has come--a day to test the endurance and the courage of the Auto Boys almost to the breaking point. And even while Phil and Dave were making themselves known in the Automobile club of Syracuse, Billy and Paul were planning a careful inspection of Mr. Creek's garage and its surroundings, as they sat at breakfast.

CHAPTER VI

A LITTLE KINDNESS AND WHAT CAME OF IT

Paul and Billy received letters from home in the morning mail. They were glad to have them,--would have been sorry indeed had their respective households neglected for one day to send solicitous inquiries--but they were so very "busy," they a.s.sured themselves, that--well, if they could just get the time, they'd write in return that afternoon. Whereupon they set forth for Willie Creek's establishment.

Mr. Creek was looking over a newspaper. He said he was waiting for a possible customer for a car whom he was to take out for a demonstration.

The boys said they were going to take the Torpedo out for a little good fresh air. Mr. Creek said, "Sure! She's your car, so far as I can see, though you are out some on the trade you made." This with a friendly smile.

"We'll just drive back when Willie has had time to get away and we will look his place over. Not that I think we will find anything, but--"

Billy paused.

"Dandy good scheme," Paul a.s.sented. "That boy of his--we don't need mind him at all."

"Better not go far. Let's just wait at the hotel," Worth suggested. They halted the Torpedo in front of the American House accordingly.

From their favorite chairs at the large, screened windows the two lads watched the occasional pa.s.serby, also the clock.

"He'll be miles away by this time. We better hike over to the garage,"

proposed Paul when half an hour had pa.s.sed.

"Well, _sir!_" exclaimed Billy, at the same moment. "There's Mr. Peek.

Let's say how do you do!"

Even as he was speaking, Worth hastened out to the sidewalk. The old gentleman, the tragic story of whose life was written in his stooping figure and melancholy face, recognized the boy at once. He was pleased to be so cordially greeted.