Part 20 (1/2)

”It's here, all right, Jim!” Frank heard him say, in a satisfied tone.

A minute later he was asking about the road, where it led, and what the intentions of the boy at the wheel were. Frank repeated what he had said before, to the effect that he thought the wounded man ought to see a physician with as little delay as possible, and therefore he was heading back to Columbia so as to take him to Dr.

Shadduck.

”Who?” exclaimed the wounded man, as the name was mentioned.

”Doctor Shadduck, the father of one of my chums, who was with me duck shooting,” replied Frank, thinking it strange why the man while apparently suffering so much should care who attended him, just so long as he could get relief speedily.

Again the two men conferred in low tones. Frank could hear the wounded one muttering again. Perhaps his arm had commenced to hurt once more; or, it may have been something else that started him off.

And even while Frank was wondering who these parties could be anyway, with their strange actions and apparent unwillingness to return to Columbia, which place they must have recently left, a heavy hand was laid on his arm, and a voice said:

”Say, look here, we don't want to go to Columbia, and what's more, we ain't meaning to let you take us there! Just ahead is a road that runs off from this. They told us it runs over to Fayette. Perhaps you don't want to go that way, but forget all that and turn off, because you've just _got_ to take us! No words now, but shove us along lively!”

CHAPTER XVI

AN UNWILLING PILOT

Frank Allen felt a sudden thrill shoot through his entire body when the gruff command to change his course was growled into his ear.

He had not been at all inclined to look upon these two travelers in a favorable light; but this was the first intimation he received that they might be even worse than they appeared.

Of course he made no immediate reply. In fact, he was still dazed by this puzzling turn in the strange little adventure. He had believed that in helping the luckless victims of the accident he was furthering his own interests, in that he would reach home long before his chums. Now it began to look as though he had jumped from the frying pan into the fire.

He tried to collect his thoughts and reason out the case. Why should these men so seriously object to returning to the town of Columbia? Had they been guilty of doing something unlawful that made the place dangerous to them?

Once before Frank had become mixed up with a clique of men for whom Chief of Police Hogg had warrants. He remembered the circ.u.mstance clearly, and wondered whether history could be about to repeat itself again.

And then, why should the mention of Doctor Shadduck's name affect them both in that strange fas.h.i.+on? Did they know the foremost physician of Columbia, a man of considerable property interests, and said to be the wealthiest man in the county?

”The car!”

Frank came near exclaiming these words aloud, so abruptly did they form in his mind! Now he remembered why the automobile had somehow seemed familiar to him, and why Bones had shown such interest in it.

”Bones thought it was an exact duplicate of the new machine his father bought last week; but I believe it's the doctor's own car!

These men have stolen it for some reason or other,” Frank was thinking, even while he stared ahead at the white road over which they were moving at a fair rate of speed.

His pulses throbbed with the excitement, even more than when Clifford threatened Columbia's ten-yard line with an irresistible forward rush that morning. Hearing the men talking behind him he strained his ears to try and catch a few words, in the hope that he might discover what it all meant.

”It's all your fault, Bart,” grumbled the injured fellow.

”I don't see how you make that out, Jim?” replied the other, gloomily.

”I wanted to turn and head for Fayette, but you said the other road was best,” the heavier fellow went on.

”I think so yet, but who'd expect that we'd have such a wreck? I tell you, man, we're mighty lucky to come out of it as well as we did,” said the other.

”That's easy for you to say, but my arm feels tough. I reckon she's broke sure enough. That means delay and trouble, just when things looked so bright. It's a shame, that's what. Sure we didn't lose it in the accident, are you, Bart?”