CHAPTER VII.
IN HOT PURSUIT.
TOBY and Nat stared, first at Elmer, and then at each other. Plainlythey 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 scoutleader, 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 thefine motorcycle, he began "barking," as Toby called it, after his ownpeculiar way.
"Gee, whiz, now what d'ye think of that for a hummer! The old story overagain 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 offwith your machine!"
"I don't know--yet; but I'm going to find out," replied Elmer, settinghis teeth in a way he had when greatly aroused.
They saw him bend down again, and start to examine the ground near atree, against which he evidently had leaned the motorcycle at the timehe hurried to the rescue of his comrades in distress.
"Get next to him, would you, Toby?" remarked Nat, as he watched themysterious actions of the one who had been robbed.
"Why, sure, I can understand what he's doing easy enough," the otherdeclared.
"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 hismachine 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 scoutleader started to move away.
Toby and Nat followed as close to his heels as they could, consideringthat he immediately moved into the woods; and they were compelled totrundle their heavy machines along, no easy task under the best ofconditions.
"He went this way, all right. I only hope he won't think to smash thething when he finds we're after him," said Elmer over his shoulder.
He was keeping his head bent low, and following the trail with apparentreadiness. The lessons he had learned when on that ranch in the CanadianNorthwest were undoubtedly coming in "pat" just now; though really thetrail 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 hismotorcycle through the scrub with a desperate intention not to be leftbehind.
"Well, Elmer hasn't said a thing yet; but all the same I can give apretty good guess," returned the other.
"Go on and do it, then, for I'm all in the dark and up a stump. Put mewise, Toby."
"Huh, reckon you forget mighty soon!" grunted the other, who wasstruggling manfully to rush his heavy wheel along and did not have anyspare breath, to tell the truth.
"Oh, slush, now I'm on!" cried Toby. "You mean them Fairfield chaps thatcame out here to break up Lil Artha's great winning streak?"
"Sure!" Toby grunted again, beginning to conserve his breath whenpossible.
"They flagged us, and saw a chance to put us on the blink!" exclaimedNat 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 seriousfaults.
"That's it!" snapped Toby, gritting his teeth as though even the thoughtmade him furious.
"It's a punk deal, that's what," Nat went on. "They just believe that ifElmer's out of the running the game is in their hands. But he can havemy 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 bedevoting himself wholly to the business in hand. And at this juncture hebeckoned 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 amount," observed Nat, cheerfully.
Accordingly they put on an extra spurt, and managed to gain enoughground so as to come alongside.
"I heard what you were saying, boys," Elmer immediately remarked, assoon as he saw that they were up with him; "but you're away off in yourcalculations. It isn't one of those Fairfield fellows at all who'sjumped 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, whatunder the sun would one of _our_ boys want with a motorcycle when, if herides 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 wayahead of us right now," the scout leader said; "but judging from thefact that his shoes are all broken out, I'm almost dead sure he's someWandering 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 fourflusher like that making off with Elmer's motorcycle, when he needs itthe worst kind to block that nasty little game of the envious Fairfielddubs! Oh, it's a cruel world!"
"But we're goin' to get it back, don't you forget that!" Tobyinsinuated.
"You never spoke truer words, Toby," laughed Elmer; though there waslittle of mirth in the sound; for the boy was tremendously aroused bythis 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 attop speed through the scrub ahead. Undoubtedly it was the party who hadrun away with Elmer's motorcycle. They had gained on him constantly, andwere 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 strainedevery muscle to keep alongside the others.
Elmer, being free to make a sprint, since he had no machine to trundlealong, suddenly left his chums in the lurch. They saw him leapingthrough 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 theother, with a threat in his manner that hardly became a scout; but thenToby had been a boy long before this scout movement was dreamed of, andthe natural instinct is very hard to repress.
"Hey, do we drop our wheels, and make a spurt, so as to be in at thefinish?" demanded Nat.
"You can, if you want to," replied his mate; "but something tells me amachine may come in handy yet, even if it is an old huckleberrymakeshift like mine."
"Gee, yes! I didn't think of that," Nat muttered, still clinging to hismotorcycle. "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 allalong, 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 scrubany 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 thatposition.
"What was it? Did you catch a shout for help? Perhaps Elmer's caught upwith him, Nat!"
"I thought I heard somebody call out, or laugh," Nat began, when he wasinterrupted by a shout.
"Toby
--Nat, hurry along with your wheels!"
"That's Elmer!" gasped Toby, as he tried to add a little more speed tohis 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 thehobo? Tell you what, I reckon he's made off along the road with Elmer'smotorcycle, that's a fact!"
"And he wants one of ours to chase him with! Oh, I wish I could flyright now, so's to hurry!" Nat cried.
"A fine mess _you'd_ make of it, if even a fellow like me, that's up tosnuff, 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 abilitiesin the line of aviation.
Elmer came bounding toward them just then, as though meaning to lend allthe assistance in his power toward getting the machine he fancied, ifthere was any choice in the matter, to the road near by.
He clutched hold of Toby's motorcycle, possibly believing that itsrecent regeneration might prove fairly lasting.
So they came upon the edge of the road again, after making all that halfcircle through the woods and scrub.
Toby's first act was to stretch his neck, and stare along the road. Amoving object caught his eye, which he had no difficulty in making outto 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, withsudden delight, as he saw this plain fact.
The road just there was as straight as a rule, for at least a couple ofmiles; 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 thebushes. To the indignation of Toby and Nat, the latter having alsomanaged to reach the spot by this time, the Wandering Willie jauntilywaved 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 inthis momentous crisis.
"Wow! Watch his smoke, will you!" shrieked Nat.
"Now will you be good, Mr. Hobo!" cried Toby; hoping in his heart thatthe pursuing machine might not take a notion to perform any of itsfrequent tricks and betray its new master.
The man on the stolen wheel must have heard that rattle as of artillerybehind him, for Elmer never bothered using the hush pedal, such was hisdesire to speed up and overtake the thief who was running off with hismount.
They saw him look back over his shoulder as if in sudden alarm. Then hislegs began to work faster than they could possibly have done in tenyears, as he endeavored to pedal his stolen property at a rate of speedthat would take him beyond reach of the relentless pursuer. But like ameteor shooting across the sky, Elmer bore down on the hobo motorcyclethief.