The Auto Boys' Vacation Part 6

"It's the first time I've been to town for 'most a year," said he, as he also shook hands with Paul. "I don't seem to know any of the young folks, any more, and not many of the older ones I meet."

As Mr. Peek said he was just starting for home and that he was on foot, Billy spoke up: "Our car's right here. We will take you home, Mr. Peek."

"We have something on hand, you know. Shall we let it go?" Paul whispered.

Worth nodded and the visible pleasure of the aged farmer as he climbed awkwardly up to a front seat could not but give his young friends pleasure also.

"You must have been up pretty early if you walked to town this morning,"

observed Worth to the old gentleman at his side.

"Y-a-a-a-s," Mr. Peek replied, drawing the word out to great length, as if he were really thinking of something else. And after a long pause he said, "Did I tell you t'other day about someone bein' around my house in the night?"

Yes, he had told them, the boys answered, and he went on: "It has fretted me every day. An' last evenin' I got to feelin' so down in the mouth and glum I just concluded I'd get some cartridges for my old rifle. It'd make me feel safer to know I had a loaded gun right handy.

So I went to town first thing this mornin'. I might 'a' drove, but my old horse is 'bout the same as I be,--almost ready to say good-bye."

Mr. Peek was lost for a time in his own meditations. The Torpedo whirred along at an easy speed and he seemed to enjoy greatly the pleasant motion of the car and gentle sweep of the wind. "'Tain't much like water power, is it?" he remarked, as if he had been contrasting in his mind the machinery and appliances of _his_ young manhood with the automobiles and electric motors of the present day. "I suspect you boys never saw a water wheel," he said musingly.

No, they had not, said Billy, and in answer to a question whether they would like to see one, both he and Paul were quite sure they would.

The car was rumbling along the lonely South Fork now. The old mill, the gray, old house of the miller, empty and cheerless, the pond and the icehouse were but a little way forward.

"If you'd like to stop at the mill, I'll show you a water wheel," said Mr. Peek. "And it'd have been runnin' yet, but--" Not finishing this sentence, the possible conclusion of which the boys could easily guess, the old gentleman after a little hesitation continued: "I can't get around like I used to and not as much as I ought to. I ain't been in the mill for nigh onto two years."

Billy halted the car before the weather-worn buildings. He glanced toward Paul as if he felt some misgiving in entering the ruins of the once busy place in company with the ruin of him whose wrecked hopes were responsible for all the gloom and decay in this otherwise charming valley.

But if Jones was in any degree apprehensive, he did not show it. Truly, too, it was interesting and surely there was nothing to fear, unless it were from loose or rotting boards beneath their feet. Mr. Peek explained briefly the operation of the long-silent water wheel. There was a choke in his voice, and in one way the lads felt relief when they all were in the outer air again.

"It wa'n't a right convenient place to have a mill, but we had to take our work to where our power was. Couldn't hitch power up an' make it carry us anywhere, in my time, as you do with your automobile," observed Mr. Peek.

Paul said he would like to take a walk around the old pond. Billy said, "Yes, let's do it, if Mr. Peek doesn't care."

"Just do whatever pleases ye," said the old gentleman kindly. "I'll sit here on the old platform a spell." So he seated himself at the entrance where, in the long ago, grain for the mill was unloaded and the two boys sauntered along the one-time race.

They strolled partly around the pond, speaking of the chances of good fishing and the probable depth of the water, and wondering that the ancient dam had not given way long ago. They drew near and walked alongside of the icehouse between the building and the water.

They saw the black, decaying sawdust oozing from cracks where the siding had decayed. They pa.s.sed around to the east side where were the great doors, still hanging loosely on rusty hinges. The lowest one was but a few feet above the ground. It was unlatched and stood ajar an inch or two.

"Let's look in," Billy suggested.

A runway of heavy planks, seamy and gray, built wide enough to have driven a team of horses upon, led up to the lowest door. The two boys walked easily up the incline. They drew the great door open a foot or two. The place seemed very dark after the bright sunlight without. The dead, heavy odor of the sawdust slowly being consumed by damp rot below and by dry rot higher up, was strong to their nostrils.

"If there's such a thing as spooks, they'd like to live here, I'll bet,"

said Paul Jones.

The dense gloom within was slowly giving way to a heavy, blue-black light as the boys' eyes became accustomed to the dark interior. They saw that the sawdust filled the lower part of the building up to within a few inches of the incline they stood upon, so they stepped down upon it, and to give more light as they casually looked about, Paul pushed the great door wide open.

And there before the astonished eyes of the two young gentlemen stood an automobile--the Big Six of the Auto Boys, apparently sound and whole.

"Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah!" screamed Paul Jones in the most extravagant delight imaginable. "What d'ye _know_ about it? What d'ye know about it?

What d'ye KNOW about it?" he cried, adding emphasis each time.

But if Mr. Billy Worth was answering the question, his manner of imparting information was somewhat strange, to say the least. For after his first astonished, "What in the world!" he simply seized a rear fender, as if the car might take fright and escape immediately, and there he stood, saying: "Oh, my! I'm so glad! Oh, I am thankful for this day!" For while Paul's emotion found vent in an ecstacy of joy Billy, really more deeply moved, scarcely knew what he did or said. The prayer of thanksgiving in his heart was very earnest and sincere--so much of both that words entirely failed to give his feelings expression.

The first sharp edge of their surprise, excitement and delight was gone in a minute or two and the boys began a rapid inspection of the Six and its contents. Even as they did so Mr. Peek, attracted by Paul's delighted yells, came slowly up the incline. His surprise was very manifest, though of a decidedly less demonstrative character than Paul's, for instance.

While Worth and Jones inspected the car, Mr. Peek was making a study of the manner in which the machine had been gotten down from the road and into the icehouse.

"Except for being so muddy inside as well as outside, she's just as we left her," announced Billy Worth presently. At the same instant Paul, who had been looking at the engine, switched on the spark, touched the starter, and lo! the motor hummed as sweetly and powerfully as anyone could possibly desire.

"But how in time did they put it in here and who in thunder done it?"--Jones was apt to lose accuracy and gain a certain inelegance in his speech as his force of expression increased.

As if answering Paul's question, Mr. Peek called from outside: "Sure enough, they knew the place!" And he pointed out to the two boys as they ran out to him how the automobile had been brought down the steep bank from the road above by means of heavy planks. There were four of the thick, unplaned boards.

"How'd they ever get here, do you suppose?" asked Mr. Peek. "For more'n twenty year, I tell ye, them plank has laid in a pile way over on yon side of the hill. Somebody must 'a' knowed where to lay hands on 'em."

"Do you mean that somebody must have expected to steal our car and brought the boards to be ready?" asked Billy.

"Not exactly that," said Mr. Peek, "but them plank was carried way down here for the purpose. No stranger would 'a' known where to look for 'em."

Instantly Billy remembered that Alfred Earnest and Alex Hipp were familiar with all this neighborhood. He started to speak but a quick second thought bade him refrain.

"Gosh! We've got the car and we're mighty glad of the planks to help her up to the road again!" cried Paul. He did not grasp the significance of Mr. Peek's words as Billy did. "We're going to take her right to Griffin, ain't we? We'll telegraph Phil and Dave in a hurry if we can only find where they're at."

It was agreed that the Big Six should be gotten out of the old icehouse and in readiness to go to Griffin, even before Mr. Peek had been taken home. The old gentleman was eager to help, but his services were hardly needed. With the same heavy boards the thieves had used, a runway was made out from the sawdust to the outside incline. Carefully the machine was backed up. All went well and in three minutes the mud-stained but still handsome automobile stood in the sunshine again.

By a similar process the planks bridged the way up the steep embankment of the road, running directly over the low rail fence. The ascent was steep but with a quick start Billy made the upward run nicely. The machine's long body swung prettily around at the top, once more on the open highway.

Finding his services were of no value in the moving of the car, Mr. Peek had been making further search inside and outside the icehouse. Now Billy and Paul joined him. But all their eager scrutiny was without reward. No sign was discovered which might show who had stolen the Big Six or what the purpose of the thieves may have been in concealing the car where it was found.

"This little trip has done me a world of good. I do believe I could be right spry again if I had some spry young fellows to help me get started, as you have done," said Mr. Peek. The boys were just leaving him at his home. "It's a pretty mysterious business about them planks,"

he remarked a moment later. "Don't you let that automobile out o' your hands again."

There was little danger that the boys would do so, it is needless to say. Paul had driven the large car right behind Billy and Mr. Peek in the Torpedo, and similarly, each driving a machine, they returned triumphantly to Griffin and to Willie Creek's garage.

To say that Mr. Creek was surprised would be but a part of the truth. He was literally dumfounded. The story of where and how the stolen car was found seemed to surprise him still more.

"Better hike over to the American pretty quick," said he a little later.

"There's a telegram for you."

So did Billy and Paul receive the message from Phil and Dave.

"Who cares for that Torpedo thing? We've got the _Six_," said Jones, reading the telegram over Worth's shoulder.

"We'll wire 'em! Wow! but won't they be some surprised?" Billy returned.

And forthwith the two rushed to the telegraph office.

"We have found her. Pretty muddy inside but not hurt."

And such was the message received by Way and MacLester in Syracuse.