ough to do this, and in a few minutes they were going
back over the dark track Tom had come, the harness jingling from the
horses' hames, and Mr. Blodgett trudging sturdily along by the animals'
heads.

They came to the top of the ridge from which the stalled car had last
been seen by Tom. "There are the lights!" he cried.

He was glad to see them. They shone cheerfully in the dark, and he had
no idea that the girls were in any trouble.

But when they got down to the bottom of the hill there was neither sign
nor sound of the two girls. Tom shouted at the top of his voice. He
searched the car all over for some written word. He saw that the girls
had carried off only their own personal belongings and nothing else.

What could it mean? Surely no thieves had come this way, or the car
would have been stripped of everything portable, and of value. At
least, so it seemed to Master Tom. He was not wise enough to suspect
that the goods in the car had been left alone to mislead him. The
Gypsies had been after bigger game than a few dollars' worth of auto
furnishings.

"Come now!" exclaimed Sam Blodgett. "I can't wait here all night. I only
agreed to drag the car ter town."

"But where could those girls have gone? My sister and Ruth Fielding?"

"Ye ain't payin' me ter be no detectif," drawled the man. "Come! Shell I
hitch on?"

"Oh, yes! I don't know what else to do," groaned the boy. "I've got to
get the car fixed first of all. Then I will find help and follow the
girls."

The farmer was as unsympathetic as a man possibly could be. He started
the car and let Tom ride in it. But he had no word of advice to give
about the absent girls.

Perhaps, like his wife, he believed that Tom was not honest, that the
car was stolen, and that Tom's companions were mythical!

They rolled into Severn Corners at ten o'clock. Of course, in a hamlet
of that kind, there was scarcely a light burning. Tom had learned from
Blodgett that the local blacksmith sometimes "monkeyed with ortermobiles
that come erlong busted."

So he had the farmer draw the car to the door of the blacksmith shop.

"Sim lives right next door, there," said Blodgett, preparing to depart.
"Mebbe ye kin wake him up an' convince him he'd oughter mend yer
contraption in the middle of the night. But Sim Peck is constable, too,
so mebbe ye won't keer ter trouble him," and the farmer drove away with
a chuckle.

This news was, however, important to Tom. A constable was