mped down and came around the big Pierce-Arrow and stood
staring up at us. They stared at the Brewster's Centre car, too; I guess
they didn't know what to make of it.

One of the men said, "What's all this? What are you boys doing with that
machine?"

As long as none of the other fellows said anything, I spoke up and said,
"We're boy scouts and we're sitting here."

"Boy scouts!" he said, all flabbergasted.

"Right the first time," I told him; "we rescued this car from two
fellows that were trying to get away with it. You see that railroad car?
That belongs to us."

"We're going to have a deed to it," Pee-wee shouted.

"Sure," I said; "a dark and bloody deed. We just happened to be there,
because we rolled down the grade from Ridgeboro. Believe me, I've been
through eight different grades in school, but this one was the worst I
ever saw. We came near taking a header into the lake, but we got the
brakes on just in time. You get a fine view of the car from here, don't
you?"

"I'm the sheriff of this county," the man said. "You say you stopped
this machine?"

"We can stop any machine, even a Rolls-Royce," I told him.

"Yes?" he said.

"You'd better ask this fellow how it was," I said, pointing to Westy.

"We stopped them, that's all," Westy said. That was just like him.

"Well then, _I'll_ tell you," I said. "When they said they couldn't get
by, they wanted to run our car down into the lake. What did they care?"

"But we _foiled_ them," Pee-wee shouted.

"Foiled them, hey?" the sheriff said. Gee, he couldn't help smiling.

Then I just grabbed Westy's head and pulled it where the men could see.
"When they were on the railroad car," I said, "this fellow took the
spark plugs out of the machine and hid them in the lake."

One of the men blurted out, "What!"

"That's nothing," Pee-wee started; "once----"

"He got a couple of snapshots of them, too," I said; "maybe they'll be
of some use to you."

"Hey, Mister, can this machine do eighty miles an hour?" Wig piped up.

"Seventy," the man said.

"_Y--a--a--h!_ What did I tell you?" Connie said, giving him a rap on
the head.

"Maybe you'll be able to catch them, hey?" Connie said. "Anyway, I hope
so, because one of them hit this fellow a good whack on the head."

"So?" said the man. "Well, we'll take care of that pair. It won't be
hard, with their pictures. They're a couple of the most desperate auto
thieves and highwaymen in this state. You boys did a