CHAPTER VII.
IN HOT PURSUIT
Toby and Nat stared, first at Elmer, and then at each other. Plainly they could not understand what he meant by these strange words.
"Er – d'ye mean you forget just where you left it, Elmer?" asked Toby.
"I tell you it's gone, vanished completely, disappeared!" said the scout leader, with a show of anger in his usually steady voice.
"Great goodness, Nat, he means somebody's swiped it!" ejaculated Toby, his mouth opening in his astonishment.
Nat looked all around him, and then, not seeing a single trace of the fine motorcycle, he began "barking," as Toby called it, after his own peculiar way.
"Gee, whiz, now what d'ye think of that for a hummer! The old story over again of the traveler on the highway falling among thieves. My stars, Elmer, now who under the sun do you think would be so mean as to run off with your machine!"
"I don't know – yet; but I'm going to find out," replied Elmer, setting his teeth in a way he had when greatly aroused.
They saw him bend down again, and start to examine the ground near a tree, against which he evidently had leaned the motorcycle at the time he hurried to the rescue of his comrades in distress.
"Get next to him, would you, Toby?" remarked Nat, as he watched the mysterious actions of the one who had been robbed.
"Why, sure, I can understand what he's doing easy enough," the other declared.
"Then for goodness' sake put me wise, won't you please?" cried Nat.
"He's examining the tracks left by the chap who got away with his machine while he was working with your old ice wagon!" observed Toby, proudly.
"Well, now, I guess that's just what he is doing, sure as you're born. And don't I just hope he gets on to him! How is it, Elmer?" as the scout leader started to move away.
Toby and Nat followed as close to his heels as they could, considering that he immediately moved into the woods; and they were compelled to trundle their heavy machines along, no easy task under the best of conditions.
"He went this way, all right. I only hope he won't think to smash the thing when he finds we're after him," said Elmer over his shoulder.
He was keeping his head bent low, and following the trail with apparent readiness. The lessons he had learned when on that ranch in the Canadian Northwest were undoubtedly coming in "pat" just now; though really the trail was so very plain that even a novice might have followed it.
"Who d'ye thing could have done it, Toby?" asked Nat, as he pushed his motorcycle through the scrub with a desperate intention not to be left behind.
"Well, Elmer hasn't said a thing yet; but all the same I can give a pretty good guess," returned the other.
"Go on and do it, then, for I'm all in the dark and up a stump. Put me wise, Toby."
"Huh, reckon you forget mighty soon!" grunted the other, who was struggling manfully to rush his heavy wheel along and did not have any spare breath, to tell the truth.
"Oh, slush, now I'm on!" cried Toby. "You mean them Fairfield chaps that came out here to break up Lil Artha's great winning streak?"
"Sure!" Toby grunted again, beginning to conserve his breath when possible.
"They flagged us, and saw a chance to put us on the blink!" exclaimed Nat who, like Lil Artha, was more or less addicted to present-day slang, though otherwise he was known to be a clean fellow, with no serious faults.
"That's it!" snapped Toby, gritting his teeth as though even the thought made him furious.
"It's a punk deal, that's what," Nat went on. "They just believe that if Elmer's out of the running the game is in their hands. But he can have my machine, if he wants to go ahead. If anybody can make it behave, Elmer can."
"Or mine either," declared Toby.
Now Elmer, of course, heard all this talk, even though he seemed to be devoting himself wholly to the business in hand. And at this juncture he beckoned to his comrades.
"He wants us to pick up, and get even with him," declared Toby.
"Sure thing. Guess Elmer is going to take us at our word, and borrow a mount," observed Nat, cheerfully.
Accordingly they put on an extra spurt, and managed to gain enough ground so as to come alongside.
"I heard what you were saying, boys," Elmer immediately remarked, as soon as he saw that they were up with him; "but you're away off in your calculations. It isn't one of those Fairfield fellows at all who's jumped my claim with that borrowed motorcycle!"
"W – w – what's that?" gasped Toby.
"I said that it wasn't a Fairfield fellow who ran off with my machine," repeated Elmer, more positively than before.
"Well, you make me feel like thirty cents," observed Nat; "now, what under the sun would one of our boys want with a motorcycle when, if he rides on it, for even a minute, he's disqualified in the race?"
"It wasn't one of our scouts either," said Elmer.
"Then for goodness' sake tell us who it could be, Elmer!" cried Toby.
"I haven't even glimpsed him once yet, though he's only a little way ahead of us right now," the scout leader said; "but judging from the fact that his shoes are all broken out, I'm almost dead sure he's some Wandering Willie."
"He means a hobo, a common tramp!" exclaimed Toby in astonishment.
"Tell me about that, will you!" cried Nat. "Just to think of a four flusher like that making off with Elmer's motorcycle, when he needs it the worst kind to block that nasty little game of the envious Fairfield dubs! Oh, it's a cruel world!"
"But we're goin' to get it back, don't you forget that!" Toby insinuated.
"You never spoke truer words, Toby," laughed Elmer; though there was little of mirth in the sound; for the boy was tremendously aroused by this new calamity that threatened to upset all his calculations.
"Hurry, hurry! I can go a bit faster, now that I know what's on!" declared Toby, although his manner of gasping belied his words.
"Oh, there he is right now! Look, look, Elmer!" cried Nat.
All of them caught a glimpse of some moving object that was pushing at top speed through the scrub ahead. Undoubtedly it was the party who had run away with Elmer's motorcycle. They had gained on him constantly, and were now surely overtaking the rascal.
"We're just bound to get him, fellows!" said Toby.
"That's so, Toby; it looks good to me," remarked Nat, as he strained every muscle to keep alongside the others.
Elmer, being free to make a sprint, since he had no machine to trundle along, suddenly left his chums in the lurch. They saw him leaping through the low underbrush as might a deer.
"Hurrah! He'll get him!" shouted Toby.
"Twenty-three for yours, Mr. Wandering Willie!" added Nat.
"Don't I wish Elmer would just hold him till we come up," added the other, with a threat in his manner that hardly became a scout; but then Toby had been a boy long before this scout movement was dreamed of, and the natural instinct is very hard to repress.
"Hey, do we drop our wheels, and make a spurt, so as to be in at the finish?" demanded Nat.
"You can, if you want to," replied his mate; "but something tells me a machine may come in handy yet, even if it is an old huckleberry makeshift like mine."
"Gee, yes! I didn't think of that," Nat muttered, still clinging to his motorcycle. "The hobo might strike the road again, you mean?"
"Yep, that's what, Nat."
"And go skeetering off on Elmer's wheel?"
"Just what I meant," replied Toby. "He's been making a sorter curve all along, like he wanted to strike the road; I noticed that, Nat."
"So did I. Don't like the job of pushing that machine through the scrub any too much, I reckon," Nat remarked, panting from his own exertions.
"And say, do you blame him?" Toby asked.
"Listen!" and Nat cocked his head as though he could hear better in that position.
"What was it? Did you catch a shout for help? Perhaps Elmer's caught up with him, Nat!"
"I thought I heard somebody call out, or laugh," Nat began, when he was interrupted by a shout.
"Toby – Nat, hurry along with your wheels!"
"That's Elmer!" gasped Toby, as he tried to add a little more speed to his forward progress.
"Perhaps he's got him under his knee, and is holding him for us," suggested Nat.
"That's silly," returned the other, immediately. "It won't hold water, Nat. Whatever would he tell us to bring our machines, if he had the hobo? Tell you what, I reckon he's made off along the road with Elmer's motorcycle, that's a fact!"
"And he wants one of ours to chase him with! Oh, I wish I could fly right now, so's to hurry!" Nat cried.
"A fine mess you'd make of it, if even a fellow like me, that's up to snuff, don't seem able to get it down pat," sneered Toby.
"I see Elmer, and he's waving his hand to us like fun!" exclaimed Nat, without appearing to take any notice of the slur cast upon his abilities in the line of aviation.
Elmer came bounding toward them just then, as though meaning to lend all the assistance in his power toward getting the machine he fancied, if there was any choice in the matter, to the road near by.
He clutched hold of Toby's motorcycle, possibly believing that its recent regeneration might prove fairly lasting.
So they came upon the edge of the road again, after making all that half circle through the woods and scrub.
Toby's first act was to stretch his neck, and stare along the road. A moving object caught his eye, which he had no difficulty in making out to be a motorcycle, upon which a ragged specimen of a tramp was seated, and which he was working at a great rate with his feet on the pedals!
"He don't know beans about how to run the engine!" Toby exclaimed, with sudden delight, as he saw this plain fact.
The road just there was as straight as a rule, for at least a couple of miles; and the fellow had not gotten more than a quarter of a mile away.
He happened to turn his head to look back just then, while the machine "yawed" at an alarming rate, threatening to dispose of the tramp in the bushes. To the indignation of Toby and Nat, the latter having also managed to reach the spot by this time, the Wandering Willie jauntily waved a hand toward them, as though bidding them a fond adieu.
There was a sudden sputter, and a rattling volley. Then away sped Elmer, mounted on Toby's old machine, which seemed about to redeem itself in this momentous crisis.
"Wow! Watch his smoke, will you!" shrieked Nat.
"Now will you be good, Mr. Hobo!" cried Toby; hoping in his heart that the pursuing machine might not take a notion to perform any of its frequent tricks and betray its new master.
The man on the stolen wheel must have heard that rattle as of artillery behind him, for Elmer never bothered using the hush pedal, such was his desire to speed up and overtake the thief who was running off with his mount.
They saw him look back over his shoulder as if in sudden alarm. Then his legs began to work faster than they could possibly have done in ten years, as he endeavored to pedal his stolen property at a rate of speed that would take him beyond reach of the relentless pursuer. But like a meteor shooting across the sky, Elmer bore down on the hobo motorcycle thief.
CHAPTER VIII.
TWENTY-SEVEN MILES FROM HICKORY RIDGE AND HOME
"Look at the silly guy, will you! Thinks he can run away from a forty-mile-an-hour engine! I like his nerve, now!" exclaimed Nat.
"But Elmer's eating up the distance like fun!" cried Toby, dancing up and down in his great excitement. "Think of my old machine behaving so decent, would you! Why, she runs as smooth as grease – better than when she was new! There! He's closing in on him now like hot cakes. Watch what happens, Nat!"
They stood there in the road, with their eyes glued on the little comedy that was happening not a great distance away.
The tramp knew from the loudness of those rapid-fire explosions that the speeding motorcycle must be rapidly overhauling him. No need to turn his head any longer to size up the situation, which in his mind was becoming acute.
"He's going to skip out!" shrieked Nat, suddenly.
"Sure thing!" echoed Toby. "Look at him dragging his big trilbies along the road to slow up. Hope he don't run slap into a tree though, and bust things higher'n a kite!"
"There he goes! Hoopla!" shouted Nat.
They saw the tattered thief suddenly bring the motorcycle to a stop, or at least what looked like it from a distance. Then he fell over on the ground, and rolled into the bushes, as if only too anxious to get out of the reach of the owner, before he could lay hands on him.
Elmer shut off power and applied the brake, for he quickly came to a stop close by the spot where his machine lay.
"Chase after him, Elmer! Get him!" yelled Nat, as he and his comrade started to hasten along the road, Nat apparently forgetting that he might as well make use of his machine, if so be it would answer his demand.
But it looked as though wise Elmer saw no reason why he should get mixed up with a rough hobo, simply to satisfy his desire for revenge. He seemed to be bending over the motorcycle, as though investigating the extent of damages it might have sustained in being so hastily dropped on the hard road.
"Here, what's the reason we can't get along in style?" demanded Toby. "Hit up your old ice wagon, and I'll hitch on behind that far."
"Sure thing!" remarked Nat, as if the idea had never once occurred to him, he was so busy thinking of how he would like to lay hands on the thief.
After several attempts the machine decided to be good; and as it started, Toby managed to hang on in some fashion, until presently they arrived on the scene.
Elmer had raised his motorcycle and started the engine going, after dropping the rest at the rear, so that the back wheel could spin in the air.
"Seems to work all right!" declared Toby.
"Glad to say there's been no damage done, except a dent in the gas tank, and that can be easily pounded out later on," Elmer declared, as he heaved a sigh of relief.
"Are we going to let that hobo get off so easy; or do we chase after him?" asked Nat, glaring around at the neighboring woods, in the depths of which no doubt the object of his anger was snugly ensconced, watching to see what they would do.
"No use trying to get hold of him," remarked Elmer. "Forget it, and let's bump along the road. He just saw a chance to steal something that he really had no use for, and couldn't hold back. It's all right now, and no damage done. Get ready to start, fellows!"
In another minute they were speeding away, possibly much to the relief of the concealed tramp, who had begun to fear that he had stirred up a hornet's nest, and was likely to get stung pretty badly.
Ten minutes later, with all three machines humming merrily, they flitted past a roadside tavern.
"See that?" called Elmer over his shoulder to Toby, who was next in line.
"The road house, d'ye mean?" answered the other.
"Second signing station, fourteen miles, about, from Hickory Ridge," Elmer said.
"But you didn't make any move to stop," remarked Toby.
"No need," came the reply. "We wouldn't be apt to pick up any later news than what Hen Condit gave us. And we want to make all the time we can. Been enough delay already."
"But perhaps there won't be any more, from my machine anyhow, Elmer. She's going like a greased pig. That shake-up must have been just what the old buster needed." Toby bawled, knowing to what the other referred when he mentioned hold-ups.
Nat was trailing along in the rear, but coming apparently with no sign of another balk; although doubtless he lived in perpetual fear of something new springing a surprise on him. A motorcycle, once it gets to acting queer, can establish a reputation for opening up new avenues of trouble second to none.
"Hey, look ahead!" called Toby, presently, after they had covered another long distance of quite a number of miles.
Elmer, upon doing so, discovered that a couple of fellows occupied the middle of the road, and seemed to act as though they meant to stay there, no matter what came along.
As the motorcycle squad rushed toward them, Elmer had no great difficulty in recognizing Landy's cousin, George Robbins, and one of the Fairfield crowd, Angus McDowd.
They had their arms locked, and seemed on the best of terms with the world in general, though their steps had a tottery look, as Nat expressed it.
Finding themselves left far in the rear, these two had apparently made up their minds not to bother about who won the great hike; but to stick to each other, and take things as easy as they could.
Hearing the sputtering of the several machines, they looked back and waved their hands, evidently recognizing Elmer in the lead. Then they stepped to one side of the road so as to let the procession pass.
Elmer threw out his hand so as to warn Toby to slow up, as he meant to do that same, and did not wish to take the chances of being run down.
"How far are we from home?" shouted both the walkers, as Elmer came close.
"About twenty miles," he replied, for he had anticipated such a question, and prepared himself to meet it promptly.
"Is that all?" called Angus McDowd, who looked pretty much "all in."
"What's the news; who's ahead, Elmer?" called George, as the motorcycle passed.
"Lil Artha at last accounts, by a long lead!"
"Bully for Lil Artha!" both trampers shouted; for Angus was so tired himself that he really cared very little who won.
"How far ahead of us, hey?" shouted George.
"Only about thirteen miles, George," answered Toby as he flitted past with a fresh start.
"Oh, won't poor old Landy feel sore when he hears how the hope of the Philander Smiths has gone aglimmering!" mocked Nat, as he, too, went by.
George made a quick motion with his hand as though throwing something at his tormentor; then his care-free laugh floated after them.
About three miles farther along the road they discovered another sight.
"What's going on there?" shouted Toby, who again hung rather dangerously close in the rear of the leader, because he wanted a chance to exchange remarks from time to time.
"Looks like a breakdown, and that's a fact," Elmer replied.
"That's right," called Toby immediately. "It's Tom Cropsey, and he's trying to put a plug in his tire. He's got a puncture, and that ended his run as inspector."
The boy looked up as they drew near, and shook his head even as he grinned.
"All in, I reckon, Elmer, can't seem to fix her!" he called, as the scout leader flashed past.
Possibly he would have been glad if they had stopped in order to assist him repair the obstinate break; but Elmer had other fish to fry just then, and time was too valuable to waste in gaining a recruit who could never keep up with them for even half a mile.
So they presently saw the last of poor Tom, marooned so far away from home, and with night coming on apace.
Elmer knew that they might expect to overtake some of the others at any minute now, and every time he turned a bend he looked closely to see if there were not figures on the road ahead.
Nor was he mistaken.
A few more miles, and he saw a lone pedestrian manfully struggling onward, with a stout stick, which he had stopped to cut, assisting him. At first Elmer thought it was an old man hobbling along, until coming up on the party, the other wheeled.
"Hello, Jack, old fellow! making a game push for it, eh?" called Elmer, who had slowed down considerably, so as to give the contestant a cheery word to encourage him in persisting.
"Wow, but I guess I'm pretty near the limit, Elmer," answered the other, who turned out to be Jack Armitage. "How far have I come since morning, hey?"
"About twenty-four miles," answered Elmer, as he passed.
"Gee, is that all? Thought it was near fifty!" lamented the scout, as he waved his cane at both Toby and Nat as they went by and doubtless cast an envious look at the machines that were carrying them over the ground so easily, while he was completely done up, and ready to cry quits.
"Next!" shouted Nat, who was really enjoying this thing of overhauling the various used-up walkers more than anything that had come his way for a long time; it is always so nice to spin along on a wheel, or a motorcycle, or in a car, and pity the poor fellows who have to walk!
"Well, there he is, right beyond," said Toby over his shoulder.
"Who under the sun is it?" demanded the rider in the rear, whose view was somewhat obstructed by his companions.
"Blest if I know; looks a little like our Ty Collins!" Toby shot back.
"It is Ty; anybody ought to recognize that old red sweater of his," Elmer announced; "and he's got a fine stone bruise on his foot, if that limp means anything!"
The contestant stepped out of the road as they drew near. He stiffened up to salute, game to the last, and chasing away the look of pain that had been on his boyish face.
One of his shoes was held in his hand, and he had been walking along in this way, determined not to give up until the last gasp.
"Better throw up the sponge, Ty," called Elmer, who had the authority to order anyone out of the race who in his judgment was unfit to continue further.
Ty's face told that he welcomed this command, as it released him from all further responsibility, and he could retire with good grace.
"What'd I better do, Elmer?" he called out.
"Station four just ahead; stay there to-night. Some one come for you in morning!" the scout leader shouted back.
"All right, I will. Hello! Toby, and you ditto, Nat. Who's winning? That fast Fairfield fellow, Wagner, passed me a long time ago, going strong."
"Oh, Lil Artha is miles ahead of him!" replied Nat.
"Hurrah for the pride of Hickory Ridge troop! Bully for Lil Artha!" they heard Jack whoop as they sped onward.
Thus one by one they were fast picking up the contestants who were spread out along the road to Little Falls, covering many miles from the leader to the fellow far in the rear, the Hope of the Philander Smiths.
"There's the other bicycle boy, Phil Dale!" shouted Toby a little later, after they had passed the tavern which had been selected as the fourth station.
"And he's near played out, too. Look at him wabble, would you! Wow, he can't do many more miles at that rate!" Nat yelled.
Elmer gave a salute to warn the rider they were coming and wanted half the road. As he swept past Phil called out something, but Elmer failed to catch what he said, the others also went whooping by, no one having thought to slow down.
And so both inspectors as well as a number of the played-out contestants had been overhauled. They were now fast coming to the point where a crisis would be waiting for them. Twenty-seven miles from Hickory Ridge and evening close at hand, when the miserable plot of the Fairfield schemers could be put into play!