The Auto Boys' Mystery

"Paul's blaze will be our light-house. We want to hit toward the middle of the lake, just about opposite the camp, then straight over to the far side," spoke Way, breathing fast. "Keep me guided right, Bill." He was pulling hard.

The incoming water kept Slider more than busy. With a can in each hand he scooped to right and left. Worth found it necessary to give Phil very few directions for Way was a splendid oarsman and the light craft swept forward rapidly.

Every minute or two Billy sang out MacLester's name. Eagerly he scanned the water as far as the lamp rays fell, but heard nothing, saw nothing.

Not until the north shore was almost reached did Phil slow down. Then he let the boat drift forward easily while watching for a landing place. "Raise the lamp higher," he called over his shoulder.

Billy did so and as the skiff floated nearer the quite steep bank rising from the water at this point, there came suddenly into the lighted circle a flat bottomed fishing boat. It was the scow MacLester had used and it was empty.

CHAPTER VI
IS NO NEWS GOOD NEWS?

The bank where the skiff's nose soon touched was steep, yet easy to be climbed as its height was only a few feet. But there was no sign that anyone had been near it. Otherwise the dry earth would have shown the imprints of toes or heels. This was quickly proved when, Phil steadying the boat and with a root and a straggling shrub to help him, Billy crept quickly to the top.

"Still, we don't know just where Dave may have run in. It's queer that he let the scow drift, if–even if he expected to go right back," said Worth in a hushed tone, from the edge of the low bluff.

"Queer what became of the man who called him over here, if such a thing as Mac falling into the water may have happened," observed Phil. "And Dave could swim–why, almost across the lake, if he had to! He could save himself if there was nobody pulling him down."

Throwing Billy a line by which to hold the boat, Way and Slider followed him up the bank. They walked some distance in each direction along the shore but the feeble light of the oil lamps showed no trace of David MacLester nor yet of the mysterious person who had summoned him. The thought, "crooked work," was in the minds of all three.

"After all, it's the water I'm most afraid of. If Dave fell and hurt himself or was pushed into the lake–but never mind. One of us must go back to Paul and the others will have to–look further," said Phil at last.

Billy was chosen to return to camp. What Phil meant to do, with Slider's help, was drag the lake in this vicinity. If Dave had gone to the bottom, due to some accident or injury, it might not yet be too late to save his life. Such things had been done, Way said, but he spoke without his usual confidence and very, very gloomily.

Returning to the skiff, the boys ran along side the fishing boat and drew the latter to shore. Phil and Chip tied her to a projecting root and Worth bade them good-bye.

With a long, steady stroke he pulled for the southern shore and the bright light blazing there. But it is one thing to row for the fun of it, when the sunlight dances on the ripples, and quite another to cross a strange body of water–and alone–when inky darkness spreads everywhere.

The swelling of the wood had now pretty well stopped the skiff's leaking, yet again and again Billy paused to bail out. The unpleasant thought that he would find the water pouring in too fast for his best efforts harassed him. He could not see, so he often put down his hand to feel and thus make sure the boat was not filling. So at last did he float into the rays of the campfire's light and a minute later stand telling Paul the unhappy discoveries made.

The thought that Dave and the strange man, having found their boat drifting beyond reach, may have started to walk around the head of the lake and so come on foot to the camp, had suggested itself to Billy as he rowed. Mentioning this to Paul he set out, with a small camp lamp in hand, to explore the shore in the direction indicated.

Thus left alone again Jones was the most dejected and sorrowful young fellow one could easily imagine. To keep the fire blazing high was all he could do to be of any possible assistance. Inactivity was hard for him to bear at any time. Especially was it hard when his thoughts were so disturbed and his anxiety so great.

It was coming daylight when at last Jones saw the fishing boat approaching. In it were Phil and Billy and Chip; for Worth, having traversed the whole upper border of the lake without result other than to tire himself exceedingly, had spent all the latter part of the night with Way and Slider.

To the great astonishment of these two he had suddenly appeared to them out of the darkness. He had broken his lamp to bits in a painful tumble into a dry water course the undergrowth concealed.

Several hours the three lads had then spent alternately dragging the lake's bottom with hooked poles, looking up and down the steep bank for footprints, and here and there going some distance back into the woods vainly searching. Even before the dawn appeared their lamps went out. With difficulty they had then embarked for the opposite shore. Daylight came as wearily they worked their heavy craft forward.

The one hopeful fact the boys found in a sorrowful review of the situation, as they stretched their tired limbs upon the ground, was that the dragging of the lake in the vicinity where Dave's empty boat was found had been without result.

"We'll get some rest–a few minutes, anyway, and a cup of coffee, then we'll see what daylight will do to help us," suggested Phil.

Yet it was scarcely more than sunrise when the search was resumed. Crossing to the north shore in the skiff, Billy and Paul set about a minute inspection of the dry earth of the bank and of the woods for a long distance up and down the water's edge. Leaving Slider in camp, Phil made the detour of the east shore on foot.

As Way drew near the scene of the fruitless work of the night he discovered close in shore an old log lying just under the water's surface and partially imbedded in the earth of the bank. A short, stubby branch projected its wet and slimy tip an inch or two above the water. A slivered end that had risen considerably higher was freshly broken. Not completely detached, it lay almost level with the water's surface.

But a more interesting discovery still was unmistakable footprints in the dry earth. The footprints were made by MacLester. Of this Phil was certain. It was to the large projecting splinter, broken from the old log, that Dave had tied the boat, perhaps. Yet how had the slow and heavy craft broken from its mooring? And what was of vastly more consequence what had then happened to Mac?

The scene of Way's discoveries was some distance from the spot in which the fishing boat had been found. It was farther to the east, also, than search along the bank had been carried during the night; but the lake at this point had been dragged again.

Examining the ground carefully, Phil sought to find some further evidence concerning the missing boy's movements. He discovered nothing of importance. Going forward, then, to Billy and Paul, now working toward the westerly end of the lake, he told them of his discoveries. Quickly they returned with him.

To make their search thorough the three boys undertook to inspect the ground covering a wide area at this point where they believed their friend had landed. Several hundred feet from the water they made an interesting discovery. In a little patch of earth, made bare by the burrowing of some small animal, there were three footprints. One showed the mark of a shoe such as Dave MacLester wore. Two other tracks were broad and heavy–the imprints of coarser footwear.

It was a marked relief to the three chums to find such good cause to believe MacLester was not drowned; but what in the world had become of him? Had he been enticed away? Had he been taken captive by some unknown enemy?

In vain the search for other footprints,–anything to cast additional light on the grievous problems,–was carried further. Every prospect ended in disappointment. It was long after noon. The boys had penetrated several miles into the woods and they at last acknowledged themselves completely baffled.

Murky was a name they often mentioned as they counseled together. They could think of no one else who might have a reason for doing them all an injury. But why should Murky wish to make Dave or any of them a prisoner? His only motive could be that he feared they were searching for the stolen money he considered as his own. He had warned Chip Slider to keep off that track, the boys knew.

"We'll hunt till dark, then if we have no success and get no word at all, we will get the sheriff and a lot of men from Staretta! We will find Dave and it won't be very pleasant for Murky or whoever is to blame for this," declared Way. "There's more back of the whole matter than we can make out–more than we can even guess right now, you'll see!"

The boys returned to camp. The thought had come to them many times that Chip Slider might know a great deal more than he had told. They remembered Link Fraley's words about the boy. But they could not accuse him without any ground for doing so. They could find no evidence that Mac's disappearance had not occurred just as Chip had told them. And he had twice repeated the whole story the same as in the beginning.

It was a heart-sick group that ate a hasty lunch of bread and coffee in the woodland camp. Now for the first time, however, Paul told of the lonely time he had had during the long night–told of the noises he had heard in the distance, along the beach. He was quite sure that bears and deer, as well, to say nothing of numerous smaller creatures, had come to the lake to drink and bathe. He believed they would have come quite close to the shack but, for the bright fire he kept blazing.

Ordinarily the boys would have found great interest in such a subject; but today their spirits were at too low an ebb, their minds too disturbed over the unaccountable loss of their friend to permit their attention being otherwise occupied.

All except Billy set out after lunch to learn whether the suspected Murky had deserted his usual hiding place. Slider was the guide. He led the others quite directly to the logs where the tramp had made his bed and headquarters.

The fellow had apparently departed. He had left the pan and other utensils taken from the boys' camp but the blankets he had carried with him. They were nowhere to be seen, at any rate.

More certain than ever, then, that it was this unscrupulous villain who had decoyed Dave across the lake and in some manner forced their friend to accompany him, the lads hurried back to camp.

Again they rowed to the north shore and with utmost determination plunged into the hot, close woods.

CHAPTER VII
THE LONG-HIDDEN TREASURE IS UNCOVERED

A somewhat portly, somewhat pompous and self-important appearing individual was this man. His bristly hair, cut very short, was tinged with gray under the large, loose-fitting cap such as golfers and motorists wear. His face was smooth, puffy and red. His very eyes, more touched with red, also, than they should have been, as well as his pudgy hands indicated self-indulgence and love of ease.

Presently the cap and the person under it moved from the rise of ground, above the road builders' last camp, down into the valley. With a smile that had too much of a sneer about it to be pleasant, the man ground his heel into the gravel where the Longknives' road had come to its troubled ending. With the same disagreeable sneer in his manner that accompanied his unpleasant smile, he turned here and there, noting how the brush and stunted stalks of mullen were springing up all about the unfinished task the workmen had left.

Startled suddenly out of his reverie by a bluejay's scream, or some other noise–he may have fancied it, he thought–the man looked hastily, searchingly about him; but satisfied, apparently, that he was alone, he moved leisurely into a shaded place and sat himself down on a stump–another token of the great road that had been begun but never completed. Quite carefully he drew up his trousers at the knees, then picked from his hosiery, whose bright color showed in considerable expanse above his oxfords, some bits of dry grass and pine needles gathered in his walk. Mr. Lewis Grandall had come, apparently, to view the work his perfidy had caused to be abandoned.

For a long time the unfaithful treasurer of the ambitious Longknives sat in silent meditation. He had noted with some satisfaction that a growth of brush screened his position from easy discovery should anyone chance to pass that way; and now his thoughts ran back over the circumstances leading up to his present personal situation. Quite steadily his eyes were fixed upon the unleveled bank of gravel, the half-hewn logs and all the unfinished work in the general picture of desolation and abandonment before him.

It is doubtful, perhaps, if Grandall realized his own responsibility for the waste and ruin on which he looked. At least his face bore no trace of sorrow, no expression of sincere regret. The same dull sneer was in his eyes, the same defiant air was in even the poise of his body and the heel that, with a certain viciousness, he dug into the dry earth.

Lewis Grandall's start in life had been attended by bright prospects. If only he had been found out the first time he yielded to temptation in scheming to get money by dishonest means, he might still have made his life a success by turning at once to the right road; but not being detected, he became bolder. From mere trickery and deceit it is but a step to out-and-out thievery. Grandall took that step and more. Yet he managed for long to cover his tracks sufficiently that few suspected and no one publicly accused.

One would have supposed that, being accustomed to the handling of other people's money in his banking work, he would not easily have been tempted when he found himself with a large sum of the Longknives' funds in his possession. Neither had he any pressing need of this money at the time he laid his plan to appropriate to his own use the cash intended for Nels Anderson's army of road builders. He merely thought he might some day be glad to have at his command a secret reserve large enough to maintain him indefinitely.

So did he plan the pretended robbery by which a former woodsman he had long known made off with the suit-case wherein he carried the money for Anderson's long overdue payroll. His original purpose had been to make some sort of division of the cash with Murky; but there was not anywhere in the Grandall code either honor or honesty. It was a particularly bright idea, indeed, so Grandall himself considered when the thought came to him that he might have the unsuspecting Murky relieved of the suit-case before the fellow had so much as seen what was in it.

The plan was put into effect. Slider, weak of morals, but strong of arm, was chosen for the work. To him Grandall told as much of his whole scheme as he thought necessary, but told him nothing whatever that was wholly true, with the possible exception of the statement that Murky was not to be trusted because he talked too much.

Having been a beneficiary in a small but largely crooked lumber deal Grandall had once managed, Slider entered into the robbery scheme most willingly. With the general result the reader is familiar; but in detail it may be added that, in keeping with the promoter's plan, he who relieved Murky of the suit-case hid it later just where few would suspect it might be hidden.

That place was almost within gunshot of the very spot where the money would have been distributed had it reached those for whom it was intended. This not only suited Mr. Grandall's convenience, but kept Slider in a comparatively safe locality, as well. So many men had been engaged on the work near Opal Lake that the presence of any kind of person in working clothes, in that vicinity, would occasion no remark.

Thus had Slider secreted the suit-case in a decaying heap of drift along the identical little stream beside which the great gravel road had ended. There had Grandall found and quietly removed the riches the very next day. Then the dishonest treasurer limped back to his hotel, for he was supposed to be scarcely able to move, owing to his "injuries," as a result of the robbery.

Nearly three years passed. The suit-case lay undisturbed where Grandall hid it and its valuable contents were intact. If the Longknives' treasurer had had occasion to make use of this money, meanwhile, he had been either afraid or unwilling to do so. But he knew where it was. He knew that in an emergency he could lay hands on a moderate fortune whose existence he believed none suspected. The thought bolstered his courage in scheming the method of more than one piece of trickery and dishonesty.

Then came the end, as sooner or later in crooked plans it must come–Failure! They all fail,–it is inevitable,–at last. The wrong-doer faced the necessity of flight.

Grandall's defalcations in the bank did not appear at once. A small matter–the "padding" or falsely increasing of some petty bills for material furnished the city–had started an investigation. It was to the amazement of everyone who knew the man that a long, long chain of shady operations and even petty stealing, even the robbery of his own friends, was by slow degrees uncovered.

Toward the last, it was apparent, Grandall had been driven to the most painful desperation. Night and day he must be on guard to keep his deceptions covered up. Constantly he must devise new practices in deceit to conceal others that once had served, but now, daily and hourly, were opening at most unexpected points revealing the treachery, falsehood, hypocrisy and rottenness they erstwhile had secreted.

Like a common thief, the guilty Grandall stole away in the night. Behind him he left all that might have made life useful and pleasant–home, friends, hope and ambition. Lying for some time hidden in a distant city, he at last felt it safe to travel by a circuitous route to Opal Lake.

At a country railroad station he stepped quietly off the train. With no luggage but a small handbag he slipped into the woods. A long tramp brought him the following day to the abandoned clubhouse. The very atmosphere of oppressive loneliness there pleased him because of its assurance of his safety from discovery.

How little Grandall guessed, or even suspected, that at just this time he could not have come to a place more fraught with danger to himself will never be known. No knowledge had he of the eyes that stealthily watched him. No thought had he that the moment he appeared with the stolen suit-case in hand, ready to slip away to hoped-for safety in a distant country, a lurking enemy would leap upon him.

The thief sat for a long time contemplating the ruins where so abruptly the road building had ended. It was not until near evening that he strolled slowly toward the clubhouse. The general course of the gravel drive he followed, but in the main kept a few feet to one side, that the trees and brush might screen him.

He had no fear here, yet he knew some boys were in camp not far away and not even by them did he wish to be observed. For he would spend one night of rest in the clubhouse room that once had been his own; and then he would be away–gone for all time from these and all the scenes of his younger life.

Yet a pair of heavy, scowling eyes watched Grandall's every footstep–saw him enter the clubhouse–saw him seat himself restfully in the empty living-room beside the great fireplace and proceed to make a supper of sandwiches and fruit from his small satchel.

Murky could not have been more vigilant had his own life been at stake. Not only his determination to gain again the stolen money that had been taken from him, but his hatred of that person the victim of whose double-dealing he had been, made him watchful, and a very dangerous man.

Quite suddenly in the afternoon had the vexed and oft-disappointed tramp discovered Grandall. It was while the latter stood beside the ruins where the gravel road had reached its ending. In delighted surprise Murky with difficulty suppressed a cry. Dropping instantly to the ground, he pressed over his mouth both his dirty hands lest some exclamation he could scarcely resist should betray him. "Blame me!" Under his breath he muttered the words with almost fiendish pleasure.

His worst enemy then was the occasion of those sounds that had startled Grandall from his reverie. But he felt himself so entirely alone, so wholly free from any probability of being observed, that he had given the slight noise not a second thought. During all his afternoon of sinister gazing upon the ambitious enterprise his act had wrecked, he still believed himself as completely alone as a man well could be in any vast woods or wilderness.

And even when Grandall left the little valley and walked in silent meditation to spend one night more–but one–in the old house on the Point he heard no footsteps coming on behind. His thoughts were far from pleasant ones but they occupied him fully. The sullen hatred so clearly shown in the expression of his eyes and lips was but a reflection of all that passed within his mind. Friends or foes, men were all alike to him, and those who had never voiced a word against him he reviled equally with those who had been his dupes, and with the men whose accusations had caused his flight, as well.

Coming to the clubhouse, Grandall lingered for a time up and down the weed-grown walk leading to the garage. Then while it was yet light he went down to the rotting pier and looked long and earnestly across and up and down the lake. Slowly he returned and, entering the house, went at once down cellar.

In the pitch darkness he felt his way to the rear of the steps leading from above. Striking a match or two, he examined by such flickering flames the rough uneven wall. With bare hands, then, he seized a projecting corner of one of the large flat stones and pulled it easily from place.

If this part of the wall had been laid up with cement or mortar it had been broken down some time before, as would appear very probable, for the masonry that Grandall now brought tumbling to the floor concealed a deep aperture in the dry, sandy earth.

The thief's next lighted match revealed the hole and also revealed a damp and discolored leather case.

Still crouching in the dark cellar Grandall managed to work the rusty lock and lay the suit-case open. Then he struck another match and its dim glow disclosed the carefully packed bundles of bills, and among them a bag of coin. He nodded his head in a satisfied way. He had assured himself on first arriving at the old house that the treasure was safe; but he would not remove it from the hiding place until he was prepared to leave, he had decided. Now he was ready.

And where was Murky?

As a matter of fact, from his concealment among the bushes near by, he was trying to decipher the room upstairs that this lone visitor to the old house would probably occupy. He had lost sight of Grandall when the latter had quickly entered and gone to the cellar. But it was only for a little while that the scowling eyes searched the open door and the windows in vain.

As Grandall came up to the living-room carrying the discolored suit-case, he glanced quickly all about him. Possibly some sense of his guilt came to his mind now that the evidence of his theft was squarely in his hands, and for the first time he appeared apprehensive. Yet he paused only for a few seconds. He saw to it that all the first floor doors were bolted from within, and slowly climbed the stairs to the sleeping rooms above.

As if quite at home the man entered that room whose long, low window opened upon the little balcony toward the lake. He smoothed down the mattress and brought a blanket from an adjoining chamber. Opening the window wide, for these upper rooms were very close and warm, he drew the suit-case to the better light he thus admitted and proceeded to count the money it contained.

The night was hot, the air seemed stifling, but when he had satisfied himself as to the amount of the treasure, Grandall returned the packages of bills and the bag of gold and silver pieces to their places, then closed and locked the window. He locked his chamber door also, before lying down to sleep. As if that could save him now!

CHAPTER VIII
DAVE MACLESTER'S ADVENTURE

The voice that had guided Dave across the water greeted him at once. "It's full glad I am to see ye, even if I can't see ye half in the darkness of it," came with a pronounced Irish accent.

"Guess that won't make much difference if you can see your way into the boat," Dave answered. "Did you get lost?"

"No, no! not lost at all, at all, but I couldn't find me way, quite," came the response. The speaker had now come down on the sloping bank close to the boat, as if about to step aboard.

"I only wondered," Dave answered. "Seems as if the woods were full of mysterious people–one lone man hiding in an old clubhouse, another–" The lad checked himself. A sudden thought came to him that perhaps he better not speak too freely without knowing with whom he was talking.

"What's he doin' there? A man all alone, and in an old clubhouse? What might be his name thin?"

"How should I know?" Dave answered to this question. He was becoming the least bit suspicious and again he checked himself when it was just at his tongue's tip to add, "We think the name may be Grandall." There would be no harm in awaiting developments before he told a stranger quite all he knew, he grimly reflected–a wise thought, it should be needless to say.

"No harm,–no harm intinded," spoke the Irishman good-naturedly. He had come close to the water's edge now and Dave's eyes being fairly accustomed to the darkness, made him out to be a little, elderly man with a short beard, but very little hair on his head. The old fellow's baldness was, indeed, the most noticeable thing about him as, with hat in hand, lest it fall off into the lake, perhaps, he stooped down the more closely to inspect MacLester and the boat.

"Why," said the boy, fearing his short "How should I know?" might have been unpleasantly curt, "You see there are four of us fellows in camp on t'other side and we've happened to see a man at the old house on the Point below us. We've wondered who he might be, staying alone as he does, and keeping so out of sight of everybody. It's miles to the nearest house and nobody but our crowd of four fellows and our one visitor is anywhere near. But climb down into the scow and I'll take you over. Steady now, while I hold the old shell up to the bank."

For a few seconds the stranger made no reply. Then–"It must be a lake here thin. Has it a name, at all, d'ye know?"

"Why, sure it's a lake!" replied Dave a little tartly, wondering if the old fellow supposed the sheet of water lying so quiet in the darkness there might be a river or an ocean. "Its name is Opal Lake. This old boat is good and strong though. It'll carry us across all right."

Once again there was a long pause before the stranger spoke. "Oh yis!" he suddenly exclaimed, "There's me baggage, and me almost forgettin' of it! Will ye help me a wee bit with it? Sure 'tis not far!"

The kindly and somewhat coaxing voice of the old fellow, whose brogue was just enough to give a pleasant quaintness to his speech, amused MacLester and he assented readily enough to the request made of him. He threw a loop of the scow's anchor rope over a stub projecting from the water and sprang ashore. He did not notice in the darkness that his leap broke the fragile branch securing the boat, allowing her to drift, but at once said:

"We'll have to wiggle some, for they'll be looking for me in camp pretty shortly."

"Sure, 'tis not far," the man again said pleasantly, and clapping his straw hat down over his head till it almost concealed his ears, he led the way into the woods.

"Me name is Smith–Jawn Smith. What's your'n thin?" spoke the genial Irishman, as the two walked quite rapidly, despite the darkness.

"MacLester–I'm Scotch," said Dave, smiling to himself over the thought that his new friend plainly was not French.

Mr. Smith made no reply and a long distance had been covered when Dave spoke again.

"How far back are you–that is, your baggage? We'll never find the lake again, till morning, if we don't watch out."

"Sure, 'tis not far now any more," came the quite unsatisfactory answer. "Is it tired ye air?"

"No–but–great guns!"

With no other remark Dave continued close behind or alongside his guide for a long time–a very long time, it seemed to him,–possibly a quarter hour. Then–

"Where in the world are we bound for?" he asked pretty sharply.

"Sure, ye'll not lave me," was the answer, quite pleadingly.

With a decided mixture of feelings Dave said, "Couldn't you do without your baggage until morning?" But in his thoughts he added: "I've heard of wild Irishmen, and I guess I've met one, too." Still, he smiled in a grim way, reflecting further that he, also, would have a stirring personal adventure to report in camp, and he would see it through now at all hazards.

MacLester was certainly right. He would have a story of personal adventure to relate when he parted company with "Jawn Smith." But this was something he was not to succeed in doing so soon as he supposed.

Time passed and still the little, old fellow with now and again his oft-repeated, "'Tis not far," trudged onward. He seemed to know the way perfectly. Dave followed or kept near his side. However, when for possibly the tenth time the man said, "'Tis not far," the lad's impatience got the better of him.

"Your ideas of distance must have been picked up in an automobile," he said. "Twenty miles isn't far in a car, maybe. One or two–not to mention five or six–may be a lot better than a fair stretch for walking. And I've been gone a long time from camp."

The stranger made no reply.

"What are you doing in the woods–fishing, or just traveling for your health?" Dave was getting more than a little cross and his tone showed it.

"Sure, thin', I was goin' to tell ye," muttered Mr. Smith, still going forward but more slowly now,–"I was goin' to tell ye that me business is that of a sivy-ear–you know?"

"A what? I'm afraid I don't know exactly."

"You don't know a sivy-ear? Sure! Peekin' through a little popgun on three poles? That's a sivy-ear."

"Oh, a surveyor!" exclaimed Dave. "What in the world have you been surveying here in the woods?"

"Down't be axin' questions. Sivy-ears go peekin' an' peekin' an' they don't tell whatever they may see. For why should there be sivy-ears at all, if they towld what they do be seein'?"

MacLester was both irritated and amused; but he was getting too uneasy now to let the all-too-apparent humbuggery of his companion go unchallenged.

"Well, I'll say this much, Mr. Smith, that if you know where your instruments are, and can go there right off, I'll stand by my bargain to help you; but if you don't, you better say so. We're five miles from the lake now, if we're a foot."

"Yes, it's right ye air," was the still unsatisfactory answer. And though Dave replied more sharply than he had yet spoken, his companion each time responded in soft tones and mild language, but always evasively.

"Well! if you know where we are, tell me that!" spoke MacLester very firmly at last. "I'm going not a step further until I know what sort of a wild goose business you are taking me on!"

"Oh,–oh! Sorra day–sorra day!" The man sat himself down heavily upon a fallen tree over whose prostrate trunk he had just escaped falling. "Ye must do as ye will, but it's lost I fear I am."

"Lost?" echoed Dave loudly. "You don't mean that we've been jamming ahead in the dark, and all this distance, without knowing where we were going!"

"It was not far!" Mr. Smith moaned wearily. "Oh! it is tired am I!"

"Well! I'll be cow-kicked!"

And possibly David MacLester may be excused for using so impolite an expression when his situation is considered. Here he was miles from Opal Lake–miles from camp, and lost in the woods in the dead of night with a strange man who might be either a dangerous crook or a harmless lunatic–circumstances pointed toward both.

"Ye'll not be blamin' me, sure!" spoke the old fellow. His very voice showed that he was indeed tired to the verge of fainting; but his manner was as mild and child-like as his words.

Language could not express Dave's feelings. In mute contempt, anger, weariness and a certain deep curiosity mingled, he dropped to the ground.

"I wouldn't blame you, mister," said the boy at last, "but I set out to do you a friendly turn and you get me into this pickle as a result and still give me no satisfaction as to where you belong or where you want to get to."

"Jawn Smith"–and it plainly was not his name–made no answer for a long time. Meanwhile David expressed himself pretty freely to the effect that there was but one course to pursue and that was to stay right where they were until morning. "And when daylight comes we'll head straight for the lake," said he.

"It's no odds who I be," said the stranger finally. "If I be not a real sivy-ear, I'm the likes of one, a peekin' and peekin'. Which is for why I can't be gossipin' about matters that means a great deal to them that I would be befriendin'. Come mornin', we'll see."

"Humph! Hope we may see more than we do this minute," Dave answered. For although the two had been so long in the darkness that they could make out trees and other objects well enough to avoid them, it had been a very hard as well as a long tramp and the more so because of the gloom of night.

His head pillowed on his arm Dave fell asleep, at last, regardless of the many things that vexed and worried him. His queer companion slept also and so did the daylight find them sore and hungry. The sun's rays brightened their spirits, but "you can't eat sunbeams," as MacLester rather gloomily remarked. The first excitement of the adventure had subsided now and he was quite inclined to despondency.

On the strength of the stranger's statement that his camp and baggage and food he carried could be found in a short time Dave again let him lead the way. A long walk in one direction was followed by a tramp of a still greater distance in another with no apparent intention of arriving anywhere.

And both MacLester and the stranger were suffering for water. They had crossed a small stream where there were still pools of good water, notwithstanding the severe drouth, early in the morning. It was decided to revisit it before starting for the lake. But here, too, long-continued efforts were a flat failure.

It is a dreadful feeling to realize that you know not which way to turn to reach any given point. Lost! It is a word whose terrors must be experienced to be fully understood.

"Come, now! I'll be the guide, and just you keep with me. We'll get out of here somehow," said MacLester resolutely. Thus far the stranger, for the most part, had been the pilot. It was past noon. Neither had tasted food since the preceding day and both were parched for water. The sun beat down till even through the thick screen of pine and deciduous branches the heat was trying. No bit of breeze relieved the sultriness.

But Dave's best efforts seemed fruitless. The only reward in a long, long tramp was to lead the weary pair to a small stream. But even this was a most fortunate discovery and both drank freely, then drank again.

As they rested the stranger was much depressed. After a long silence he said in hopeless tones: "What for a man ye may think me, I dunno; but the saints bear me witness, me bye, never did I sit out to drag ye where ye be. It's all past goin' further I am, and ye've got to lave me. An' if ever at last ye come to that lake, go right at wanst to that clubhouse and tell the gintleman who's stoppin' there, for the love of hivin' to come quickly where I be. It's Daddy O'Lear that wants him, say–poor–poor Daddy O'Lear."

"What's that?" exclaimed MacLester. "Now if this ain't a pretty mess! I was sure your name wasn't Smith, but—"

"An' I'll be staying thin, till ye come fer me; but ye'll be tellin' nobody but the wan man that I'm here, be sure."

"You are going along with me," was the decisive answer. "Then I'll tell no one anything. I don't want anything to do with your friend. There's a way out of this howling wilderness somehow! We've got to move! It will be dark again in two hours!"

But even a strong tugging at his arm would not persuade Mr. O'Lear, if such were his real name, to rise and start.

"You go with me or you'll go to jail where someone else ought to be too, if I'm not mistaken," said Dave with emphasis. "You can't stay here, man! And whoever you are, I'm not going to let you!"

CHAPTER IX
"THE LAKE! IT'S THE ONLY CHANCE OF ESCAPE!"

Quite worn out in both body and mind, they took careful note of their bearings, then headed by what they thought a bee-line for Opal Lake. On and on they hurried. The twilight deepened and they kept to a direct course with difficulty. And still they reached neither the lake nor any familiar spot.

"Fine boat we're in if we've gone and got lost," gasped Paul, bringing up the rear. The boys were pushing forward at a slow run, Phil Way in the lead.

"We didn't pay close enough attention to the distance, when we were going the other way; but we'll be out of this in a little while now," came Way's hopeful answer.

"I smell smoke. It might be from our own camp. Chip would be firing up like mad to make a bright blaze," came Billy's voice above the steady patter of feet upon the needle-strewn ground.

"There's some breeze picking up, but not quite from that direction," said Phil, though he paused not a moment.

Paul was first to discover that the course Way was taking could not be right. "I can catch the smell of the swampy ground, at the west end of the lake, in the wind," he said. "We've got to head right against this breeze."

A brief pause, and the lads agreed that Paul was right. And soon the proof was positive. Ten minutes of rapid walking brought the chums to the water, but it was at the east end of the lake, not the north shore, at which they found themselves. Another half mile or less would have taken them entirely beyond the familiar sheet of water, and have led them, hopelessly lost, undoubtedly into the woods to the south. Their course had been steered too far easterly in the beginning.

Glad, indeed, to be so near their camp once more, despite the weight upon their hearts concerning Dave, the boys agreed to continue on around the upper end of the lake on foot rather than return now for the skiff on the more distant shore. So did they come presently to their shack and the bright blaze Chip Slider had burning as a beacon light for them.

The ray of hope the young searchers held out to one another on their homeward way, that they might find MacLester safe and sound in camp upon their own arrival there, was quickly turned to disappointment. Chip had no news–not one word of information, good or bad, to report. He had remained faithfully in camp and had seen nothing, heard nothing unusual.

"Exceptin'," said he, "there's bad fires somewheres in the woods. I smelled smoke the minute the wind began blowin'. All day there wasn't hide nor hair of air a stirrin'. It was just after sundown that it started in, real gentle, an' it's gettin' higher. You take a fire in the woods, and a stiff gale, and you've got something to look out for, I tell you."

"We've got to rest and think a little, and have something to eat," said Phil, paying scant attention to Slider's words. "We've done what we can in one direction, now we must start out on some other plan."

"I knowed you'd be hungry and I've got the coffee hot. I boiled some eggs and cooled 'em this afternoon and them are ready, too. Just you all rest and I'll get some kind of supper," announced Slider, almost bashfully. But his friends were truly glad to do as he suggested. The simple, hasty meal of cold, hard-boiled eggs with plenty of bread and butter, crackers and cheese and coffee would have been most enjoyable too, had there been no absent one.

For an hour or two the three Auto Boys rested and sought to find the best plan to pursue toward finding Dave MacLester. They could not do better, they at last felt sure, than to report their mystery to the authorities at Staretta.

From the town, also, inquiries among the villages lying beyond the great woods could be made by telegraph or, even better, by telephone, perhaps. If Dave had been foully dealt with, as seemed only too probable, the law's officials could not be any too quickly informed.

It was drawing on toward midnight when the Thirty's lamps were lighted, the engine started and all made ready for a rapid run to the town. Phil took the wheel. Telling Slider to keep a bright blaze shining and his ears wide open for any signal from over the lake, he threw in the gear, let the clutch take hold, and the three boys began this last bit of service they were ever to have from their much beloved car.

Way was usually a conservative driver but tonight his foot at no time ceased to press the pedal that increased the gas. Over the smooth spots and over the rough ones, ruts, roots and hummocks of the hard-baked earth, the automobile whirred. Rarely did the speedometer show less than fifteen miles and often the indicator touched twenty-five, and this while the road was still but the woodland trail.

Luckily the lights were clear and bright, but more fortunate still, Phil was every moment alert and earnestly attentive to every inch of the road and every throb of the machine.

Like some swift phantom the blaze of the lamps sped on and on among the ever retreating shadows and utter blackness of the night. Like black-hooded spectres the trees at either side seemed to glide ever to the rear, silent and ghostly except as their branches were tossed by the rising wind.

It was not until they were far past the bleak, dark house of Nels Anderson, that Billy shouted his opinion that inquiry should have been made there. No, Phil called with emphasis, the time for giving heed to uncertain, unknown persons had passed. He was sorry the arrest of Murky and of Grandall had not been brought about when first it was suggested, he said. A lot of things might have turned out differently if it had been done, and he, at least, believed—

"Look! There's sure fire yonder!" It was Paul's voice interrupting.

The car was fairly clear of the woods and the road now led among the blackened stumps and rough undergrowth of the district where flames had raged in time long past.

Far to the west and north the sky was blazing red. The whole distant horizon of the direction named seemed as if the doors of some mighty, seething furnace, miles in width, stood open. A rank odor of burning wood came stronger and stronger on the gusts of wind.

"It's a good ways off and maybe isn't burning much this way," shouted Worth above the rush of air and whir of the auto's wheels.

"The wind, man! It's sweeping right into the heart of the woods," Phil answered loudly. But not for a moment did the car slacken speed. The road was getting better. Staretta was but five miles distant.

"Still, there's not much danger of the fire coming our way. It will go way north of the lake," Worth replied.

"And that's just the direction Mac's in," echoed Paul Jones in tones of alarm.

"Yes!"

Phil cut the word quick and short. His tone and the instantly still greater speed of the car told all too plainly where his fears were running.

There was no need to rouse Link Fraley or the officers of Staretta. They were astir watching the progress of the distant flames. Scores of men had already gone to join the fire fighters, who, it was reported, had reached the scene from Jacques' Mills, a settlement to the northwest that lay in great danger, should the wind change.

The fire had been noticed only as clouds of smoke during the day, Link Fraley said. In the afternoon messengers arrived saying that the blaze was gaining great headway. It might yet be confined to a certain swampy district, thick with dead trees and grass and a rank undergrowth of rushes, now dry as tinder from the long drouth. It was here the fire had started. Many men returned with the bearer of the news to aid in the battle.

With sundown came the wind. There could be no stopping of the terrible destruction so long as the gale increased, Link Fraley stated. The best that any could hope for was that the blaze could be kept within a narrow limit as it swept onward into the wholly unsettled country so saving the little towns and mills along the railroad line.

But about MacLester–the hearts of the three boys sank like lead. Even Sheriff Larsen said nothing could be done for him while so great a number of lives were in jeopardy and every hand was needed to preserve them. He was sorry–very sorry; but he believed and hoped Dave would escape in safety, somehow, though there was not a thing that anyone could do at once to help him or to aid his friends in finding him.

Perhaps he had been lured into the woods for purposes of robbery, or by Murky, in a spirit of revenge; but even the much-needed attention of the law to that dangerous character must wait, the sheriff said, until the great fire could in some degree be overcome.

Awed and alarmed, their every nerve tense with a depth of interest and anxiety such as few ever experience, the three friends listened to the conversation of those about them. The principal crowd had gathered before Fraley's store. Suddenly, from the partially lighted interior, Link Fraley came. With a nod of his head he beckoned the Auto Boys aside.

"An Indian fellow–Doughnut Dan, they call him–has just come in from up the line," said he, "and brings word that the fire will get south of Opal Lake and no stoppin' it. Hadn't ye better go? Right now you'll be ahead of it to the lake and no danger. Later on–and ye've got that Slider chap on your hands back at your camp. Get him and get your stuff, and get 'em quick."

"But MacLester! We can't—" began Way hurriedly.

"You've got to! What can't be helped, can't be helped, but what can be–that's what you got to think about and right off!"

"He's dead right, Phil, bad as it is," murmured Billy sorrowfully.

"It may be, but we'll—"

Whatever Way had meant to say, he spoke no further but quickly started for the car. Paul and Billy followed and the latter took the wheel while Phil re-lighted the gas lamps and Jones gave the crank a quick, quarter turn.

When but little north of Staretta the three boys could see that all the Indian had reported was true, and more than true. If the high wind continued the whole district south of Opal Lake would be swept by the fire within the next few hours.

But even in this estimate they were falling far short of the truth. Every hour the wind blew harder. Great brands of fire were being carried forward, starting constantly, and in hundreds of places, fresh bursts of flame.

The car never traveled better than on this last night of its usefulness. In but little more than twenty minutes the boys were driving through dense volumes of almost stifling smoke. They were now well into the woods and within the path of the flames' fiercely rapid advance.

As they went forward they discovered that the fire's main path would probably be midway between the lake and the desolate country burned over years before. But it would be spreading constantly. Nothing could check it.

Suddenly a feeble glimmer of light loomed out of the smoke and the darkness forward. It was the glow of the lamps at Nels Anderson's.

"They'll never get out alive," called Phil. "Hold up, Billy!"

By the lights of the car, and from the windows and open door of the low, unpainted house, the figures of Anderson and another man, and of Mrs. Anderson and their little girl could be seen moving hurriedly in and out. Phil sprang down to investigate.

The giant Swede, his family and their guest were carrying the household goods of every kind to the very center of the small clearing. What they feared was all too plain. But would their efforts count for anything? Would their very lives be safe in this small space?

"I tank she will go nort of us," spoke Anderson, excitedly, as Phil approached. "She must bane most at da lake now."

Obviously he referred to the fire. Before Phil could say more than that he hoped the little clearing would escape the fire's main fury, at least, the other man came up. He was the person in the golfing cap. Way was sure of his identity instantly and his face grew hard.

"Have you been in town? How bad is this situation?" he asked calmly but with a thoroughly business air.

"Ever so bad. You'll never be safe here," the boy answered with some excitement. "You better—"

"No! the worst of it will be north of us," said the other quickly. "It came up as if the whole woods had caught fire at once. We smelled and saw the smoke in the afternoon. Nels and I were 'way west of here to see what the danger was. We'd have been all right in this part but for the wind. But you boys–are any of your party at the lake now? Because–you'll have to move fast! Get back here to this clearing. If the fire keeps tending north you'll be far safer here than on the water. There's no telling how long it might keep you hemmed in there."

Much disturbed by the thought that even now Chip Slider might be in gravest danger, Phil said hastily, "Thank you for all you say, at least," and hurried to the car.

"The worst of this is ahead of us! Get to the lake, Billy, quick!"

Again the trusted Thirty shot forward. The fire was still too distant to be clearly seen among the trees, but the sky reflecting its red fury sent down a glow which, but for the dense smoke, would have been like early twilight. Still over ruts and roots, smooth spots and rough spots alike, Billy drove, not carelessly, but very fast. Still the smoke-filled air grew denser.

"The man is crazy! The fire may reach the lake, but Anderson's place will be squarely in the path of the worst of it," cried Phil Way excitedly. The boys were nearing their camp now, and the duller glow upon the sky gave proof that the flames were more distant from here.

Poor Slider was found nearly beside himself with fear for the safety not of himself but his new-found friends. He was resolutely at his post, and the blazing campfire showed that he had not forgotten to keep going a signal to Dave MacLester that the camp was not deserted, should he chance to appear on the farther shore.

"We're the veriest blockheads!" said Phil Way, as he looked over the lake and noted that here was the only place of real safety. "We've left the Andersons to be suffocated if they aren't burned up. Who'll go with me to bring 'em?"

"I'll go! Come on!" cried Paul, and Billy was not a second behind him.

"Wait!" Phil ordered. Then, "One of you stay here with Chip. Add all the logs you can to the raft. Make it bigger, stronger! There'll be eight of us, likely, that it will have to carry."

"Gee whiz! The car! The car, Phil! It'll be burned."

"No, it won't! Into the lake it goes. Water won't put it out of business permanently. Billy, will you stay?"

"Go ahead!" cried Worth and in five seconds Phil was driving the automobile in a way he had never done before.

Even before Anderson's place was reached the raging flames to the west of the road lit up the narrow trail with a frightful glare. But on and on the car flew.

The little clearing was reached in the nick of time. Great sparks and even flaming branches were raining down upon it. The smoke was stifling.

Huddled under some kind of an old canvas,–a tent cloth from some workman's camp on the gravel road, perhaps, Mrs. Anderson and the little girl were trying to escape the smoke and terrific heat. The grass all about the clearing was on fire. The little house must go, when the main body of the flames came closer, and very doubtful did it look that life itself could be saved in so exposed a place.

With a cry, "You can never come through the fire if you stay here, people! We've come for you in the car! The lake! It's the only chance of escape!" Phil made his presence known.

The roar and crackle and all the dreadful noise of the ocean of flame that, as far as eye could see, flooded the woods to the west seemed quite to drown the boy's loud shout.

CHAPTER X
THE LAST RUN OF THE BELOVED THIRTY

There was no time to lose. The danger of death from suffocation, even if the flames could be escaped, was very great. Now the roof of the house was on fire. There was not a barrel of water within miles. Further fighting, further loss of time, would be folly. Giants of the forest were flaming up from roots to topmost branch not twenty yards within the woods. The whole roadway would be ablaze, on both sides, in a few minutes.

A most pitiable object was Anderson's poor cow. Her head to the ground as if to escape the smoke, a low, frightened bellowing told of her realization of the danger. Forgetful of herself the child was saying, "Oh, poor, good bossy! Oh, poor bossy!"

The small haystack along side the crude, log barn suddenly blazed up. The dull red glow gave place to a white light all through the clearing. It was impossible now that any part of the property could be saved. Anderson and the other man came running to the car.

"It will be a close shave! Can you make it, boys?" cried the one in the golf cap, above the roar of the flames.

"You bet! Be at the lake in no time! We've often carried more'n six," yelled Paul excitedly. "Right in here!" and he held the tonneau door open wide. "You in front with Phil, Mr. Anderson!"

Even as Jones followed Mrs. Anderson, the little girl and the golfing man into the tonneau, and slammed the door behind him, the Thirty was under way. Its staunch gears were never before so quickly shifted from low to high. What mattered it if Paul did sit down hard in the strange man's lap? What mattered it if poor Nels, unused to automobiles, was jerked nearly from his seat before he got his great, clumsy legs quite inside? The raging sea of fire was bordering the trail ahead, and hundreds of little tongues of flames leaped here and there in the parched, dry grass and weeds in the road itself.

With frightened, staring eyes Paul looked with wonder upon the dreadful flames leaping from one treetop to another. The man beside him was shielding his face from the terrible glare and heat and the woman and little girl clung tightly to each other, the former watching only the child and holding a hand to protect her face. As if dazed and unable to comprehend, Nels Anderson looked always back toward the doomed clearing.

Phil Way alone watched the road ahead. With firm set jaw and straining eyes he looked ever forward through the blinding glare and the billows of smoke that now and again concealed the trail completely. But his hands gripped the wheel with perfect confidence, his foot pressed the accelerator steadily. The gallant car responded. The ground seemed speeding from under its wheels. On and on it flew.

Thus far the fire had raged to the west of the road only. In but a few places had it reached the trees directly beside the trail, pausing there till some fresh gust of wind, or shower of sparks, carried it to the other side.

But now Phil saw before him a spot where on both sides of the road the forest was a flaming furnace. He did not falter. On flew the car. Another moment and it was in the midst of the fire. A hundred yards it ran through the deadly heat, the awful roar and sheets of flame leaping upward and outward till their fiery fingers were all but seizing the brave lad and his passengers.

Safely the Thirty ran the fearful gauntlet. There came a shout of praise and admiration from the golfing man, words of thanksgiving from the woman. The worst was over.

Rapidly, but not so fast as in the direct course of the wind, the fire was reaching out toward Opal Lake. Like a galloping army it came on behind the car, but, barring accident, could never, would never, overtake the swift machine.

Barring accident! Bravely the engine, clutch, gears, springs, axles and wheels had withstood the strain of the terrific speed, the heavy load and the wretched road. Bravely, with every charge of gas, each cylinder delivered generous power.

The car shot down the grade into the small valley where, some distance below, the gravel road came to its abrupt ending. There was a heavy jolt as the front wheels struck the dry bed of the shallow stream.

Anderson, the giant, pitched forward. He might have caught and righted himself quite readily had he had complete use of his hands and arms, long since partially paralyzed; but in his disabled condition he missed the windshield frame he tried to catch, and went partly overboard.

With his left hand Phil Way reached for his falling passenger, still holding the wheel with his right. He seized poor Anderson just in time, but the great bulk of the fellow drew him partly from his own seat, and pulled the steering wheel sharply round.

Still going at speed, though now on the upward grade, the automobile answered instantly to the call of the steering knuckles–true to its mechanism, perfectly, to the last–answered to the driver's unintended command, and sharply swerved to the right. A large pine stood in its course.

So quickly did the collision occur, so unprepared were any of the automobile's occupants to meet the terrible shock that the escape of all from serious injury was truly miraculous. The outcome must surely have been far worse had the tree been struck squarely head-on. The fact of the fender and right front tire and wheel receiving the heaviest force of the impact lessened the jar, and the car swung around spending broken momentum in the dishing of both rear wheels.

Nels Anderson, pitched far out on the ground, was gathered up cut and bleeding. Mrs. Anderson and the child were bruised but not much hurt. Phil, Paul and the golfing man suffered no injuries beyond the nervous shock.

Strange as it may seem, Paul Jones spoke not a word. Questioningly he looked at Way.

Phil had been first to help Anderson to his feet. Now leaving him to the care of the others he quickly inspected the damage done to the machine. The roar of the flames was still just behind. Their blood-red glare cast a twilight glow far ahead through the darkness of the woods.

"She was a mighty good car," said Phil Way, softly, as if to himself, quite as one might speak of some friend who has gone. "A mighty good car!" but at the same moment his gaze took in the flames fast following along the ground and from tree to tree both west and south. Even here the heat and smoke were terrible. The dull red light was everywhere. The very sky seemed ablaze.

"This is most unfortunate. I'm truly sorry for this, boys," spoke the golfing man, very soberly. He too had been hastily investigating the damage.

Though his voice was kind, the speaker irritated Paul Jones exceedingly. "Wouldn't have happened but for you, and except to send you to prison you aren't worth it, I can tell you that, Mr. Grandall," were the words he thought, but did not utter.

"Might have been worse! We're still a mile from the lake and the fire's just behind us! That's the whole answer," said Phil rapidly. His words were in reply to the stranger's sympathetic expression, but were equally addressed to all. "Right ahead on this trail, then! We've a raft that will hold everyone!"

Rapid movement was necessary. The wind was blowing furiously now. No power on earth could stay the flames that swept ever forward. Their path grew constantly wider.

Both Phil and Paul looked with astonishment to see the stranger, whom they now detested more than ever, seize Anderson's little girl in his arms to carry her; but they were all hastening forward through the crimson light, and clouds of smoke. No more than a glance could the boys exchange.

Many times the two lads looked back. It was fortunate, perhaps, that the rise of the ground soon shut off their view of the prized Thirty. The hungry, sweeping flames came curling, playing, leaping, dancing, roaring on. They reached the car.

Phil remembered, long afterward, that as he stepped out of the automobile for the last time he noticed the speedometer, twisted about so that the light of a lamp shattered and broken, but still burning, fell upon it. The reading was 5,599 miles–the record of the season.

Safely ahead of the fire the fleeing refugees reached Opal Lake. With a glad shout, though their faces showed deepest anxiety and fear, Billy Worth and Chip Slider received them.

"The raft's all ready! I've made it big enough to float a house! All our provisions are on board, too!" said Billy to Phil, the moment he ran up. "Where's the car?"

A few words told the story. There was no comment beyond the quick, "Oh! what an escape!"