ich the stop had been made.

It did not take Uncle Toby long to jack up the car, take off the tire,
put in a new tube, and be ready to start again. But before doing that
they halted a bit longer to eat lunch. Hot chocolate had been brought
along in thermos bottles, and Uncle Toby thought the chocolate would
spill on the children if they tried to drink it while the automobile was
moving.

"There! I feel better!" exclaimed Ted, after the lunch.

"So do I!" cried Tom and Harry.

Once more they were on their way, journeying now along some country
road, and again through some lonely stretch of wood. They were almost at
Crystal Lake, and in another quarter of an hour would be at Uncle Toby's
cabin, when Mr. Bardeen began sniffing the air.

"The engine's getting too hot," he said, and then, as he noticed some
steam coming out of the radiator cap he added: "Water's getting low.
I'll have to stop and get some."

"Where can you get any water around here?" asked Ted.

"I'll try at that cabin," answered Uncle Toby, pointing to a lonely one
a short distance ahead on the road. "I guess it will be safe to run the
car that much farther."

"Who lives there?" asked Ted, as the automobile went along more slowly,
for Uncle Toby did not want to overheat it.

"Nobody lives there now," was the reply. "It's deserted. But there's a
well near it, and it's such a deep one I don't believe it will be
frozen. I can get some water from the well."

Uncle Toby stopped the car in front of the lonely cabin. He got out a
folding canvas pail from the tool-box, and was going toward the cabin
when Ted exclaimed:

"I thought you said nobody lived here, Uncle Toby!"

"So I did," was the answer. "No one has lived here for several years."

"Well, look at him!" cried the boy, and he pointed to a man running away
over the field from the back door of the lonely cottage.

CHAPTER XIV

AT CRYSTAL LAKE

Uncle Toby was much surprised at what Ted called to his attention.
Turning around, as he was going toward the well, Uncle Toby looked to
where the Curlytop boy pointed. He saw the form of a man vanishing from
sight over the top of a little hill just behind the lonely cabin.

"Hello there!" cried Uncle Toby, in such loud tones that Skyrocket began
to bark fiercely. "Hello there! Who are you? What are you doing?"

The man did not stop, turn around, nor answer. Instead he ran into a
little clump of trees and was soon lost to sight. With anoth