ver, so far
as the hope of catching Jack or his accomplices at the farm was
concerned. Old Mr. Curtiss informed them that his son had taken the
family buggy and driven furiously off down the road with Bill Bender a
short time before.

"He got a hundred dollars from me," explained the old man simply, "he
told me he was goin' ter invest it in some rich mining stock his friend
Bender had promoted but--what's the matter, gentlemen," he broke off,
noticing the half-pitying look on the faces of the men in the
automobile. Mr. Blake hurriedly explained the attempted extortion of
which Jack had been guilty.

"What, Jack--my son!" exclaimed the old man in half daze at the
stunning intelligence, "my boy Jack do a thing like that? Why, it
can't be true. I don't believe it."

"I'm afraid, nevertheless, it is," rejoined Mr. Blake, but the old man
only shook his head.

"I'll not believe it," he kept repeating.

"I wish that so good a father had a worthy son," remarked Mr. Blake as
the car shot out of the farm and out upon the highroad in the hope of
overtaking the buggy.

At the Digby farm the machine was turned off to take the cross roads
and at this spot they encountered a buggy coming toward them driven by
a farmer friend of Mr. Blake's.

"Seen a rig with Jack Curtiss and Bill Bender in it?" shouted the
banker as the car was slowed up by Commodore Wingate.

"Down the road a piece driving like the Mischief," responded the rustic
pointing back with his whip, "but you're wrong 'bout ther' bein' only
two of them; that no-good beach-comber, Hank Handcraft, was in there
with them."

With a shouted word of thanks the car dashed forward once more. It was
evident that, realizing that their game was up, Jack and Bill had
picked up Hank, and, with a sense of loyalty for which Rob certainly
would not have given them credit, were trying to save him too.

"Where can they be headed for?" wondered Mr. Blake as the car dashed
forward.

"I can hazard a guess," exclaimed Commodore Wingate, "for the Sunnyside
railroad station. If they make a train they may escape us yet."

"Je-rus-a-lem," exclaimed the chief of police, a man named Applegate,
pulling out a huge old-fashioned silver watch, "there's a train due in
a few minutes now; if we don't make it, they'll slip through our
fingers!"

Faster and faster the car roared forward and suddenly as it shot round
a curve the little station of Sunnyside came in sight. Tied outside it
was