The Corner House Girls Among the Gypsies Part 18

"I'll try," said Neale, and jumped out of the car and ran down toward the roof of the old ice-house that the afternoon before had so attracted Sammy Pinkney--incidentally wrecking his best trousers.

As it chanced, Neale had seen and now interviewed the very party of boys with whom Sammy had previously made friends. But Neale said nothing at first to warn these boys that he was searching for one whom they all considered "a good kid."

"Say, fellows," Neale began, "was this an ice-house before it got burned down?"

"Yep," replied the bigger boy of the group.

"And only the roof left? Crickey! What have you chaps been doing?

Sliding down it?" For he had observed as he came down from the car two of the smaller boys doing just that.

"It's great fun," said the bigger boy, grinning, perhaps at the memory of what had happened to Sammy Pinkney's trousers the previous afternoon. "Want to try?"

Neale grinned more broadly, and gave the shingled roof another glance.

"I bet _you_ don't slide down it like those little fellows I just saw doing it. How do their pants stand it?"

The boys giggled at that.

"Say!" the bigger one said, "there was a kid came along yesterday that didn't get on to that--_till afterward_."

"Oh, ho!" chuckled Neale. "He wore 'em right through, did he?"

"Yes, he did. And then he was sore. Said his mother would give him fits."

"Where does he live? Around here?" asked Neale carelessly.

"I never saw him before," admitted the bigger boy. "He was a good fellow just the same. You looking for him?" he asked with sudden suspicion.

"I don't know. If he's the boy I mean he needn't be afraid to go home because of his torn pants. You tell him so if you see him again."

"Sure. I didn't know he was running away. He didn't say anything."

"Didn't he have a bag with him--sort of a suitcase?"

"Didn't see it," replied the boy. "We all went home to supper and he went his way."

"Which way?"

"Could not tell you that," the other said reflectively, and was evidently honest about it. "He was coming from that way," and he pointed back toward Milton, "when he joined us here at the slide."

"Then he probably kept on toward--What is in that direction?" and Neale pointed at the nearest road, the very one into which Sammy had turned.

"Oh, that goes up through the woods," said the boy. "Hampton Mills is over around the pond--you follow yonder road."

"Yes, I know. But you think this fellow you speak of might have gone into that by road?"

"He was headed that way when we first saw him," said the boy. "Wasn't he, Jimmy?"

"Sure," agreed the smaller boy addressed. "And, Tony, I bet he _did_ go that way. When I looked back afterward I remember I saw a boy lugging something heavy going up that road."

"I didn't see that that fellow had a bag," argued the bigger boy. "But he might have hid it when he came down here."

"Likely he did," admitted Neale. "Anyway, we will go up that road through the woods and see."

"_Is_ his mother going to give him fits for those torn pants?" asked another of the group.

"She'll be so glad to see him home again," confessed Neale, "that he could tear every pair of pants he's got and she wouldn't say a word!"

He made his way up the bank to the car and reported.

"I don't know where that woods-road leads to. I neglected to bring a map. But it looks as though we could get through it with the car.

We'll try, sha'n't we?"

"Oh, do, Neale," urged Agnes.

"I guess it is as good a lead as any," observed Mr. Pinkney. "Somehow, I begin to feel as though the boy had got a good way off this time.

Even this clue is almost twenty-four hours old."

"He must have stayed somewhere last night," cried Agnes suddenly. "If there is a house up there in the woods--or beyond--we can ask."

"Right you are, Aggie," agreed Neale, starting the car again.

"Sammy Pinkney is an elusive youngster, sure enough," said the truant's father. "Something has got to stop him from running away. It costs too much time and money to overtake him and bring him back."

"And we haven't done that yet," murmured Agnes.

The car struck heavy going in the road through the woods before they had gone very far up the rise. In places the road was soft and had been cut up by the wheels of heavy trucks or wagons. And they did not pa.s.s a single house--not even a cleared spot in the wood--on either hand.

"If he started up this way so near supper time last evening, as those boys say," Mr. Pinkney ruminated, "where was he at supper time?"

"Here, or hereabout, I should say!" exclaimed Neale O'Neil. "Why, it must have been pretty dark when he got this far."

"If he really came this far," added Agnes.

"Well, let us run along and see if there is a house anywhere," Mr.

Pinkney said. "Of course, Sammy might have slept out--"

"It wouldn't be the first time, I bet!" chuckled Neale.

"And of course there would be nothing to hurt him in these woods?"

suggested Agnes.

"Nothing bigger than a rabbit, I guess," agreed their neighbor.

"Well--"

Neale increased the speed of the car again, turned a blind corner, and struck a soft place in the road before he could stop. Having no skidding chains on the rear wheels of course, the car was out of control in an instant. It slued around. Agnes screamed. Mr. Pinkney shouted his alarm.

The car slid over the bank of the ditch beside the road and both right wheels sank in mud and water to the hubs.