ere he had been assured he would see no one whomsoever, he
suddenly lost his head. He leaped headlong from the Torpedo into the
bushes at the roadside. Later he had crept forward and, from the
hillside, watched all that the Auto Boys did until they went away in the
empty car. Then he put their machine in the icehouse, guided no doubt by
the drunken notion that he was very considerably the gainer. But instead
of sobering up and meeting Kull at the American House, as had been
agreed he should do, he spent the night in a barn and proceeded to get
drunk again the moment he reached the town in the morning.

"It appears," said Bob Rack, telling the boys, Chief Fobes (who was
still in a perfect fever of wonder and excitement) and Willie Creek the
substance of Coster's confession, the day following Kull's capture,--"It
appears that our Harkville friend concealed his car several days before
he pried the padlock off his garage and reported the machine to have
been stolen. He had hidden the machine in an unused garage attached to a
summer hotel a few miles from the town. Coster obtained it there.
Knowing the case as I do now, I would venture to believe that it was the
apparent success of his first crime, in defrauding the insurance people,
that nerved Kull to carry out his plan further, and so led to the
attempt on the life of old Mr. Peek. His plans were clever, after a
crude fashion, but he made the mistake every criminal makes sooner or
later, in the belief he apparently entertained that deception could be
covered up. In the long run there is no such thing. Even Coster may be
truthful when he declares he did not know Kull had defrauded the
insurance company."

CHAPTER X

EASTWARD HO!

After all this had come to pass, the Auto Boys found that if they so
desired there was nothing to hinder carrying out in full all that they
had purposed to do when the original plan of their eastern vacation tour
had been so amply discussed by the snug fire in Dr. Way's library.

"I propose that we go ahead with the old program," said P. Jones, Esq.,
as he occasionally dubbed himself. "We've got back our Big Six. She's
all right. Nearly all our luggage and other outfitting stuff is all
right. As for gasoline, grub and so on--what's the odds? We're not broke
yet."

"Guess you're right, Jonesy," put in Worth. "For once in your life,
you've about stated the case correctly."

"If the luck keeps up, all right." This from Dave, who could