Part 18 (2/2)
”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.
<script>