t to give Mr. Nestor's name, except as a last
resort, had merely inquired whether any recent accident cases had been
brought in.

"I'll let you know later, Mr. Millard," he told the superintendent, not
exactly answering the question. He hung up the receiver, and, opening
the door of the booth, said to Mr. Damon: "He isn't there."

"Then try Waterfield," was the suggestion; and Tom did so, though he
could not imagine why an injured man, such as Mr. Nestor might prove to
be, should be taken as far as Waterfield, when the hospital at Shopton
was nearer.

"Unless," he told Mr. Damon, "the people which ran down Mary's father
didn't know about our hospital."

The reply from the institution in Mr. Damon's home town was just as
discouraging as had been the answer from Shopton. At first, when Tom
inquired, the head nurse had said there was an accident case at that
moment being brought in. Tom was all excitement until she went to
inquire the name and circumstances, and then he learned that it was the
case of a little boy who had fallen downstairs at his home and broken a
leg. There was no record of any one answering the description of Mr.
Nestor having been brought in that evening.

"Hum! This is getting to be mysterious," mused Tom, as he came out of
the booth. "What shall we do--go back and tell Mrs. Nestor and Mary, or
communicate with the police?"

"Why not try the Alexian Hospital?" asked Mr. Damon. "That's away over
in Center-fiord, to be sure, but it's more likely to be known to
passing tourists than either of our institutions around here,
especially if the autoists were strangers."

"That's so," agreed Tom. The Alexian Hospital was operated under the
direction of the Brothers of that faith, and was well known in that
part of the state. Often cases of persons who had been injured by
passing automobiles had been taken there for treatment, for, as Mr.
Damon had said, it was well known, and Centerford was the nearest large
city.

"I can just about see how it happened," said Tom. "They ran Mr. Nestor
down, and stopped to pick him up after they heard his cries for help.
And the Alexian Hospital was the first one they thought of. We should
have called that up first."

But once more disappointment awaited the young inventor and his friend.
Word came back over the wire that no accident case, which bore any
resemblance to Mary's father, had been brought in.

"Well, I'm stumped!" exclaimed Tom. "What shall we do now, Mr