e. "That's queer! You relatives of this
Mr. Nestor?" he asked.

"Not exactly," Tom answered. "Just very close friends."

"Well, it's too bad about his being missing in that way," went on the
farmer. "I read about it in the paper, but I never suspected he was
around here."

"Oh, we're not sure that he was," said Tom quickly. "Finding his wallet
doesn't prove that," and he told the story of his own and Jackson's
appearance on the scene, to the no small wonder of the farmer and his
family. Tom said nothing about the finding of the files, nor the
evidence he deduced from them. That was another matter to be taken up
later.

"Who were in the auto you saw?" asked Tom of the farmer's son. "Was
Mr. Nestor in the car?"

"I couldn't be sure of that. There were two men in the machine, and
they were both strangers to me. They were talking together, pretty
earnestly, it seemed to me."

"One did not appear as if he was being taken away against his will, did
he?" asked Tom.

"No, I can't say that he did," was the answers "They looked to me, and
acted like, business men looking over land, or something like that.
They just turned in on the road that leads to the old hunting cabin, as
we call it around here, and didn't pay any attention to me. Then I
forgot all about them."

"Neither of them could have been Mr. Nestor," decided Tom. "At least it
doesn't seem as if he'd talk at all companionably to a man who had
treated him as we think Mr. Nestor has been treated. I guess that clew
isn't going to amount to much."

"It may!" insisted Jackson. "They may have had Mr. Nestor in the car
all the while--concealed in the back you know. We've got to find out
more about these men and their auto, Tom."

"Well, yes, perhaps we have. But how?"

"Station some one at the shack, or at the beginning of the private
road. The men may come back."

"That's so--they may. We'll do that!" cried the young inventor. "We
must tell the police and Mr. Nestor's folks what we have learned. How
can we get back to Shopton in a hurry?" he asked the farmer.

"Well, I can drive you to the railroad station," was the answer.

"Thank you," remarked Tom. "We'll accept your offer. And as soon as we
get back we must send some one from the shop to stand guard over the
airship," he added in an aside to Jackson. "Those file fellows may come
back."

"That's so, we can't take any chances."

The farmer soon had his team at the door, and, after they had had a
ha