CHAPTER I
THE OVERTURNED AUTO
“What do you reckon it’s all about, Jerry?”
“Well, Bob, you’re as good a guesser as I am,” came the answer fromthe young man who was at the wheel of a touring car that was swingingdown a pleasant country road, under arching trees. “What do you say itmeans?”
“I haven’t the least idea, unless it’s some business deal. Ned, whydon’t you say something, instead of sitting there like a goldfish beingadmired by a tom-cat?” and Bob Baker, who sat beside Jerry Hopkins, thelad at the wheel, turned to his chum in the rear seat of the car.
“Say something!” exclaimed Ned Slade. “I’m as much up in the air aboutit as you fellows are. All I know is that my dad, and yours, andJerry’s mother, are having a confab.”
“And a sort of serious confab at that,” added Bob. “Look out there,Jerry!” he cried suddenly. “You nearly ran over that chicken,” andhe involuntarily raised his hand toward the steering wheel as afrightened, squawking and cackling hen fluttered from under the frontwheels of the automobile, shedding feathers on the way. Then Bobremembered one of the first ethics of automobiling, which is never tointerfere with the steersman, and he drew back his hand.
“A miss is as good as a mile,” remarked Jerry coolly, as he brought thecar back to a straight course, for he had swerved it to one side whenhe saw the chicken in the path. “But I agree with you, Bob, that theconference going on at my house, among our respected, and I might aswell say respectable, parents does seem to be a serious one. However,as long as we can’t guess what it’s about there’s no use in worrying.We may as well have a good time this afternoon. Where shall we go?”
“Let’s go to Wallace’s and have a bite to eat,” put in Bob.
“Why, we only just had lunch!” exclaimed Ned, with a laugh.
“Maybe you fellows did, but I wouldn’t call it a lunch that I gotoutside of--not by a long shot! Mother isn’t at home, it was the girl’sday out and I had to forage for myself.”
“Heaven help the pantry, then!” exclaimed Jerry. “I’ve seen Bob‘forage,’ as he calls it, before; eh, Ned?”
“That’s right. He did it at our house once, and say! what mother saidwhen she came home--whew!” and Ned whistled at the memory.
“I wasn’t a bit worse than you were!” cried Bob, trying to lean backand punch his chum, but the latter kept out of reach in the roomytonneau. “Anyhow, what has that got to do with going to Wallace’s now?I’m hungry and I don’t care who knows it.”
“Well, don’t let that fat waiter at Wallace’s hear you say that, orhe’ll double charge us in the bill,” cautioned Jerry. “They sure dostick on the prices at that joint.”
“Then you’ll go there?” asked Bob eagerly.
“Oh, I s’pose we might as well go there as anywhere. Does it suit you,Ned?”
“Sure. Only I can’t imagine where Bob puts it all. Tell us, Chunky,that’s a good chap,” and he patted the shoulder of the stout lad whosat in front of him.
“Tell you what?” asked Bob, responding to the nickname that had beenbestowed on him because of his stoutness.
“Where you put all you eat,” went on Ned with a laugh. “You know it isimpossible to make two objects occupy the same space at the same time.And if you’ve eaten one lunch to-day, and not two hours ago, where areyou going to put another?”
“You watch and see,” was all the answer Bob made. “Hit her up a bit,Jerry. There’s a stiff hill just ahead.”
“That’s right. I forgot we were on this road. Well, then it’s settled.We’ll go to Wallace’s and let Bob eat,” and having ascended the hill,he turned off on a road that led to a summer resort not many miles fromCresville, the home town of the three lads.
“Aren’t you fellows going to have anything?” asked Bob. “You’ll eat;won’t you?”
“Oh, for cats’ sake, cut out the grub-talk for a while!” begged Ned.“Say, what about that conference, anyhow? Does any one know anythingabout it?”
“All I know,” said Jerry, “is that I asked mother to come out for anauto ride this afternoon, and she said she couldn’t because your dad,Ned, and Bob’s too, were coming over to call.”
“Did you ask her what for?”
“No, but I took it for granted it was something about business. Youknow mother owns some stock in your father’s department store, Ned.”
“Yes, and she deposits at dad’s bank,” added Bob, whose father, AndrewBaker, was the president of the most important bank in Cresville. “Iguess it must be about some business affairs.”
“I don’t agree with you,” declared Ned.
“Why not?” Jerry demanded. “When mother said she couldn’t come out Ihustled over and got you fellows, and here we are. But what’s yourreason for thinking it isn’t business, Ned, that has brought our folkstogether at my house?”
“Because of some questions my father asked me this morning.”
“Serious questions?” Bob interrogated.
“Well, in a way, yes. He asked me what I’d been doing lately, what youfellows had been doing, and he wanted to know what my plans were forthis winter.”
“What did you tell him?” inquired Jerry, slowing down as he came to thecrest of another hill.
“Oh, I said we hadn’t decided yet. I didn’t tell him we had talked overmaking a tour of the South, for we hadn’t quite decided on it; had we?”
“Not exactly,” responded Jerry. “And yet the South is the place whenwinter comes. I guess we might do worse.”
“Well, I didn’t say anything about that,” went on Ned, “because, if Ihad, dad would have wanted to know all the particulars, and I wasn’t ina position to tell him.”
“Is that all he asked you that makes you think the conference may beabout us, instead of business?” Bob inquired.
“No, that wasn’t quite all. He asked me about that trouble we got intolast week.”
“Oh, do you mean about the time we were pulled in for speeding?” askedJerry with a laugh.
“That’s it,” assented Ned. “Only it isn’t going to be anything to grinat if dad finds out all about it--that we nearly collided with the haywagon while trying to pass that roadster. Say, but it was some going!We fractured the speed limits in half a dozen places.”
“But we beat the roadster!” exclaimed Jerry. “That fellow didn’t knowhow to drive a car.”
“You’re right there. And, for a second or two, I thought you weregoing to make a mess of it,” said Ned, referring to an incident thathad happened about a week previously when the boys, out on the road intheir car, had accepted an impromptu challenge to race, with what mighthave been disastrous results.
“It was a narrow squeak,” admitted Jerry.
“And the nerve of that farmer, setting the constable after us!” criedBob. “Just because we wouldn’t let him rob us of ten dollars to make upfor a scratch one of his horses got from our mud guard.”
“I sometimes think we might have come out of it better if we had giventhe hayseeder his ten,” said Jerry, reflectively. “It cost us fifteenfor the speed-fine as it was. We’d have saved five.”
“And is that what your father was asking about?” asked Bob.
“Words to that effect--yes,” replied Ned.
“Wonder how he heard about it?”
“It wasn’t in the paper,” reflected Jerry. “I looked all over for anaccount of it, but didn’t see any.”
“No, it wasn’t in the paper,” said Ned, “but dad hears of more thingsthan I think he does, I guess.”
“We have been speeding it up a bit lately,” observed Jerry in areflective tone.
“Just a little,” admitted Ned, with a half smile.
The three chums were clean-cut, healthy-looking lads, and it needed buta glance into their clear faces to tell one that whatever “speeding”they had been doing was in a literal sense only, and was not in the wayof dissipation. They were fun-loving youths, and, like all such, theexcitement of the moment so
metimes got the better of them.
“And so you think the conference may have something to do with us; isthat it, Ned?” asked Jerry, after a moment or two of silence.
“I have an idea that way--yes, from what dad said, and from what hewanted to know about our future plans. We’re mixed up in it somehow,that’s as sure as turkey and cranberry sauce.”
“That sounds like Chunky!” laughed Jerry.
“Well, what’s the idea?” demanded the stout youth. “I mean--what doyou think will happen, Ned?”
“Well, you know we have been going a pretty lively gait lately, nothingwrong, of course, but a sort of butterfly existence, so to speak.”
“Butterfly is good!” exclaimed Jerry. “You’d think we were a trio ofsociety girls.”
“Well, I mean we haven’t really done anything worth while,” went onNed. “And it’s my idea that my dad, and yours, Bob, and Jerry’s mother,who is as good a dad as any fellow could want--I think they are goingto put the brakes on us.”
“How do you mean?” Jerry demanded.
“Oh, make us cut out some of the gay and carefree life we’ve beenliving. Settle down and----”
“Get married?” laughed Jerry.
“Not much!” cried Bob. “Not if I can help it!”
“Of course not,” put in Ned. “I mean just settle down a bit, that’sall.”
They swung around a curve in the road, and as they did so they saw apowerful roadster coming toward them, driven by a man who was the soleoccupant. He was speeding forward at a fast clip.
“That fellow had better settle down!” exclaimed Jerry. “He’s going toofast to make this turn, and this bank is one of the most dangerousaround here.”
The boys themselves had safely taken the turn, and come past the steepembankment on which it bordered, but the man in the roadster wasapproaching it.
“He isn’t slowing down,” said Ned.
“Better yell at him,” suggested Bob. “Maybe he doesn’t know the road.”
“Look out for that turn!” cried Jerry, as the man passed them.
It is doubtful if he heard them. Certainly he did not heed, for heswung around the turn at full speed. A moment later the boys, who haddrawn to one side of the road, in order to give the man plenty of roomto pass, looked back.
They saw the speeding roadster leave the highway and plunge down thebank, turning over and pinning the driver underneath.
“There he goes!” cried Jerry, jamming on the brakes.