Chapter XXIV: Something Really Exciting

A very red-faced sun awoke the touring party the next morning, his first rays shooting directly into the broad doorway of the barn--an intruder that Tom Jonah, faithful watchman as he was, could not keep out. The sunshine shone directly into the eyes of the Corner House girls and their friends.

All were quickly astir. They expected to be on their way again before night; and although roughing it had been fun, there were some drawbacks to it.

"We'll sleep in regular beds again to-night," Agnes said, with some satisfaction.

"But I don't believe it will be half so nice," Tess observed. "This hay is so sweet and smelly."

"Now, Sammy Pinkney!" cried Dot, suddenly spying that youngster in mischief, "don't pull that nice pussy's tail. It hurts her."

"Ain't pulling her tail," replied Sammy promptly. "I'm only holding her tail. The cat's doing all the pulling."

Agnes bore down upon him and he immediately ceased holding poor pussy's tail.

"Say! you're awful particular," complained the boy. "I wasn't really hurting the old cat, Aggie. And--and it ain't polite to always be interferin' with a feller."

"Now you've got it, Aggie," chuckled Neale O'Neil. "You see you're not polite. And politeness costs nothing."

"Oh! doesn't it?" returned Agnes. "Suppose you'd put 'very respectfully yours' at the end of that telegram you sent to the auto factory? I guess you'd have found it cost something."

"Stung again!" admitted Neale.

"Why, what is all this I hear?" demanded Ruth, coming up from the horse trough pump bearing a brimming pail of water. "Did somebody get out of bed on the wrong side this bright and beautiful morning?"

"It was the cat," said Neale, in a sepulchral voice. "_She_ started it."

"Which side is the wrong side of a hay-mow bed, Ruthie?" Tess asked.

"That's a poser," Neale said. "You'll have to ask somebody else about that, eh, Ruth? Now, hustle along the breakfast, you girls, for I must start for Hickton."

"And I'm going with you, Neale," Agnes declared. "You can speed up that runabout as fast as you want to. The others won't be along to object."

This last remark she whispered in Neale's ear.

"I tell you, Aggie, you're a speed maniac," responded Neale. "But if Mrs. Heard says you may go off alone with me, all right."

Agnes had learned by this time to wheedle the good-natured chaperone into agreeing to almost anything the girls desired; and of course she had no objection to Agnes' going anywhere with Neale. Whether the Corner House girls realized it or not, they could not have had a brother any more careful for them or better to them than Neale O'Neil.

So the girl and boy chums were on the road in the runabout soon after eight. Mr. Collinger's was a good machine, and it ran smoothly. But Agnes suddenly had an unhappy thought.

"Oh, Neale!" she said, clasping her hands.

"Shoot!" advised the boy, with his eyes on the road ahead.

"We're riding in a stolen car."

"Sure we are. What of it?"

"And all the constables and sheriffs and policemen all over the State have the description of this car and her license number. What are you going to do if an officer holds us up?"

"Cracky! never thought of it," admitted the boy. "I expect they'll jail us."

"Horrid thing! But we _may_ have an unpleasant time explaining it."

"Well, let us hope nothing like that occurs," he said; but Agnes was troubled by the possibility of arrest all the way to the station and back again.

The casting was waiting for them and Neale paid the expressman and then the runabout was headed for the Higgins farm. As Neale and Agnes came in view of the farm buildings none of their party was in sight; but coming across a distant field were two men who seemed to be carrying something heavy between them.

"First natives we've seen wandering around here," Neale observed. "And where are the folks?"

"All gone berrying," Agnes replied. "They said they were going to fill every receptacle we have before leaving the Higgins place. I never _did_ see so many berries."

Neale ran the runabout up to the barn, but did not drive it inside. The big doors had been closed and their own car stood within on the barn floor, but out of sight.

"Let's go berrying too, just as soon as I slip this thing into place," Neale suggested.

Although the broken casting had caused so much trouble, it did not take five minutes to put the new one into place. He tried the engine, and everything worked well.

"All right," he announced, coming out of the small door of the barn again. "Shall we chase over after the others?"

"Yes. And tell them it's all right. We can start off any time now," Agnes said.

"Hullo! I guess we'll have to wait for Mr. Collinger to show up for his car."

"Oh, dear me, yes. I did not think of that," Agnes returned. "I--I wish Mrs. Heard hadn't telegraphed for him. Then we could have driven his car to Milton with ours too. _I_ could have driven it."

"No license, Aggie," said Neale. "You can't drive a car. Say! did you see that?"

"See what, Neale?" she asked him, looking all around.

"I thought I saw a man slip behind that far shed."

"Why! what's become of those two men we saw crossing the field yonder?" demanded the girl, with interest.

"Oh, they must have reached the road by this time," and Neale went on again. "I guess we needn't bother about them."

But after a moment he said, in a puzzled tone: "That fellow dodged behind the shed as though he did not want to be seen. Funny----"

"They might steal some of our things," Agnes said. "We ought not to leave the place unguarded. Come on back, Neale."

"Well--maybe you are right," admitted the boy. "Though probably they are harmless folks."

"They could steal the automobiles," declared Agnes.

"Now, don't work yourself up into a conniption fit," chuckled Neale. "You think everybody you see is an automobile thief."

"Oh! what's that?"

The sudden sputtering of an engine was audible. Somebody was trying the starter of the runabout they had left standing in the shade before the barn.

"Fooling with it, of course!" muttered Neale, starting to run.

"They are stealing it!" whispered Agnes, determined to believe the worst.

It seemed as though, on this occasion, Agnes was right. As they dashed around the corner of the stable and reached the open yard, the runabout began to "chug-chug" regularly, and they saw it being steered out of the Higgins premises.

"Hey, there! Stop!" yelled Neale.

"Oh, Neale!" wailed Agnes. "It's that Saleratus Joe and the ugly man."

She was correct. The freckled-faced fellow who had been Mr. Jim Brady's chauffeur was driving the re-stolen automobile, while the ugly man sat beside him. The latter turned around and laughed at the excited boy and girl as the runabout swerved into the road and took the direction of the railroad at a fast clip.

"Oh, dear me! what will Mrs. Heard say?" gasped Agnes.

"What will Mr. Collinger say? That's more to the point," growled Neale. "Who would have thought that those fellows were around here? And there's the can they brought with them. Gasoline, of course. They didn't have to use it, for the tank of the runabout is nearly full."

"What _shall_ we do, Neale?" cried Agnes.

Neale was practical, when once he recovered from his first amazement. He dashed into the barn and swung open the big doors.

"They didn't see our car," he cried. "And let me tell you they can't get away from it. I can drive our car much faster than they can run that little one--believe me!"

He tried the starter, glanced into the gas tank, and then got in behind the steering wheel.

"Well, Neale O'Neil!" cried Agnes. "You're not going alone--not much!"

As the car started she swung herself aboard. Neale said, hastily:

"I don't know about your going with me, Aggie. There may be trouble----"

"I don't care. I'm going," she said, with determination. "I wouldn't miss this for a farm!"

"Hang on!" he cried, as the big car rumbled out of the barn.

The mechanism worked all right, and when they turned into the road the stolen motor car was not yet out of sight.

"And we won't let it get out of sight," Neale declared. "I just wish we'd run into that Sheriff Keech again. But he lives a long way from here."

"Why, Neale!" laughed his girl companion, "he isn't even sheriff over here. Don't you remember that we're in another county now?"

"Cracky! I'd forgotten that. Well, we've got no pull with the officers of the law in this county, perhaps; but neither has Saleratus Joe. I'm going to hang right to those fellows until there's a chance of getting them arrested."

For once Agnes was satisfied with the speed of the car. It roared along the road, jolting over the uneven spots, thundering over a wooden bridge which spanned a creek, finally shooting into the main highway to the railroad station, not a hundred yards behind the stolen car.

By this time the ugly man, who often looked around, was not laughing at the Corner House girl and her companion. Without doubt Saleratus Joe was driving the runabout at top speed; but the small car did not have the powerful engine that had been built into the larger car.

They passed nobody on the road--no vehicle at least. And that was a good thing, too; for almost any horse would have been frightened by the onrush of the two cars.

"What do you suppose they mean to do? Where are they going?" shouted Agnes in Neale's ear.

"I haven't the least idea," returned the boy. "But I know what _I'm_ going to do."

"What is that?" she asked.

"Hang to 'em! Hang just like a bulldog to a tramp's coat-tail," declared Neale O'Neil.

At that moment the little station at Hickton came into sight. There were two men, talking excitedly, standing directly in the middle of the highway, and, when they sighted these two men, the thieves in the runabout slowed down.