It was not reasonable to suppose that an automobile could get very far
along such a road, yet they had traveled a quarter mile before the
tracks swung entirely away from the old path and followed a strip of
comparatively bare ground that led in toward the creek.

"There she is!" at last Chick-chick whispered. "Don't look bit like gay
old friend we left, she don't."

She did not. If it were the same car it meant that the gang, feeling
that so conspicuous a mark as the J. Jervice car originally presented
would be a fatal advertisement of their identity, and yet desirous of
making use of the car, had stripped it clean of the betraying top and
had taken away everything that could mark it for a peddler's car.

Their plan would have worked successfully but for the betraying tires,
and the sharp eye and quick mind of scout Henry Henry, commonly known as
Chick-chick.

"Are you sure it's the same?" whispered Glen.

"Surest thing on wheels," affirmed Chick-chick. "Bet you find drygoods
in the transmission case if dare look."

"Why do you suppose they've left it here?"

"Good, safe place. Nobody see. Camp not far away, reckon. Better lay
pretty low here. There's only two of us."

Late in the afternoon two tired but excited scouts found their way into
camp and proceeded to disturb Mr. Newton in his afternoon study hour.

"Is it true that there's reward of five hundred dollars for the bank
robbers?" one asked.

"I believe so," said Mr. Newton. "The sheriff himself and quite a few
deputies are trying to earn it, too. They are covering this county and
several neighboring counties, too."

"Sheriff out this way?" asked Chick-chick.

"He was in Buffalo Center this morning," replied Mr. Newton.

"We know where gang is, Mr. Newton. We want go right down get that
reward, we do."

"The reward is for their apprehension, Henry. So you see you wouldn't
get it, because, so far, you don't appear to have apprehended them."

Chick-chick's countenance fell, but he brightened again in a minute.

"We can do it all right, all right. Maybe better get sheriff help us."

He proceeded to tell Mr. Newton of their discovery.

"And you saw them so clearly you are quite sure they are the same men?"

"Yes, sir," replied Glen. "We located their camp by a line of
smoke--leastways Chick-chick did. Then we climbed a big tree near by and
looked right down on 'em. I saw Jervice and the big man, and one other
man I never had seen before."

"Wh