closing sentence made Chief Fobes laugh
boisterously. "Liar?" said he when he could catch his breath. "Did you
expect he'd be anything else? I tell ye both," and his eye took in both
Billy and Paul, "you might just as well forget this man. We'll have most
ten days yet to make a charge of larceny against him for stealin' the
basket. If there's anything to be had out of him we'll get it. All's you
can do is have them East Side fellers (Hipp and Earnest) come around
here sometime and see if they can identify this Coster as the man they
seen on the South Fork."

"We might run out and see him right now," Paul suggested.

Billy agreed and the two were soon at Creek's garage. It was a
delightful day for driving. The car's motion was cool and pleasant
though the sun beat down with unusual warmth even for June.

At the home of Alexander Hipp it was learned that he and Alfred Earnest
were picking cherries at a farm three miles beyond the Forks, on the
main road. Without trouble Billy and Paul found them. The work with the
cherries was nearly over for the day and the Auto Boys gave a hand that
it might be finished quickly. Glad of a chance for an automobile ride,
Hipp and Earnest had readily agreed to visit the Griffin lockup.

Alfred had the seat beside Billy, who was driving. "My brother," said
he, "thought you fellows made a mistake when two of you went away to
Albany to look for your machine. I told him about your plan, last night.
He wished he had seen you to talk it over because he figures you ought
to have gone toward Buffalo."

"That so? Why?" Billy asked.

"Because he says it's fairly certain the people who had this Torpedo
just switched to your car. They came from the east and was headed west
to begin with. Naturally they wouldn't go back the way they had just
come from."

"We thought of that, but our car didn't go through Griffin," Billy
answered. "Willie Creek is sure of that. It must have turned back east
again at the Forks."

Earnest argued to the contrary but, seeing there was nothing to be
gained by the discussion, Worth simply let him talk. It was strange how
many people had advanced theories regarding the car's disappearance.
Indeed so much discussion and gossip had come to the ears of the boys,
and so little real help had been given them, save by Mr. Creek, that it
is little wonder mere talk was becoming annoying.

Coster, the only occupant of the village prison, was not a little
surprised when he on