sness of Mrs. Nestor increased,
until she exclaimed:

"I can stand it no longer! We must notify the police--or do something!"

"I wouldn't notify the police just yet," counseled Tom. "Mr. Damon and
I will start out and look along the road. If it should happen, as will
probably turn out to be the case, that Mr. Nestor has met with only a
simple accident, he would not like the notoriety, or publicity, of
having the police notified."

"No, I am sure he would not," agreed Mary. "Tom's way is best, Mother."

"All right, just as you say, only find my husband," and Mrs. Nestor
sighed, and turned her head away.

"Even if Mr. Nestor had had a fall," reasoned Tom, "he could call for
help, and get some one to telephone, unless--"

And as he reasoned thus Tom Swift gave a mental start at his own use of
the word "help."

That weird cry on the lonely meadow came back to him with startling
distinctness.

"Come on, Mr. Damon!" cried Tom, in a voice he tried to make cheerful.
"We'll find that Mr. Nestor is probably walking along, carrying his
disabled bicycle instead of having it carry him. We'll soon have him
safe back to you," he called to the two women.

"I wish I could go with you, and help search," observed Mary.

"Oh, I couldn't bear to be left alone!" exclaimed her mother.

"We'll telephone as soon as we find him," called Tom to Mrs. Nestor, as
he and Mr. Damon again got into the runabout and started away from the
place.

"What do you think of it, Tom?" asked the eccentric man, when they were
once more on the road.

"Why, nothing much--as yet," Tom said. "That is, I think nothing more
than a simple accident has happened, if, indeed, it is anything more
than that he has delayed to talk to some friends."

"Would he delay this long?"

"I don't know."

"And then, Tom--bless my spectacles! what of that cry we heard? Could
that have been Mr. Nestor?"

There! It was out! The suspicion that Tom had been trying to keep his
mind away from came to the fore. Well, he might as well race the issue
now as later.

"I've been thinking of that," he told Mr. Damon. "It might have been
Mary's father calling for help."

"But we looked, Tom, near the trees, and couldn't discover anything. If
he had been calling for help--"

Mr. Damon did not finish.

"He may have fallen from his wheel and been hurt," said Tom, as he
turned the electric runabout into the highway that Mr. Nestor would,
most likely, have taken on his way fr