s great delight he had found the powerful motor practically
uninjured. The driving gear too, with the exception of one cog wheel,
was in workable order. The remainder of the car he sold to a junk dealer
for five dollars. It was twisted and broken beyond redemption.

He had next searched about for a discarded chassis on which to mount his
gears and motor. This search rewarded, he had proceeded to assemble his
car. And one fine day he sailed out upon the street with the "Humming
Bird," as he had named her.

"Better call her 'Gravel Car,'" Joe had said when he saw that she had no
body at all and that he must ride with his feet thrust straight out
before him in a homemade seat bolted to a buckboard-like platform.

But when, on a level stretch of road, Curlie had "let her out," Joe had
at once acquired an immense respect for the Humming Bird. "For," he said
later, "she can hum and she can go like a streak of light, and that's
about all any humming bird can do."

No further messages of importance having drifted in to him from the
outer air, Curlie, an hour before dinner, made his way down to the
street and, having warmed up the Humming Bird's motor, muttered as he
sprang into the seat: "I'll just run out there and see what I see."

A half hour later, just as the first gray streak of dawn was appearing,
he curved off onto a gravel road. Here he threw his car over to one side
and, switching on a flashlight, steered with one hand while he bent
over the side to examine the left-hand track.

There had been a light rain at ten that night. Since that time a heavy
car with diamond-tread tires had passed along the road, leaving its
tracks in certain soft, sandy spots.

"Maybe that's him," Curlie murmured.

A little farther on, stopping his machine, he got out and walked along
the road. Examining the surface closely, he walked on for five rods,
then wheeled about and made his way back to the car.

"He was over this road three times last night. That looks like a warm
scent. Can't tell, though. My friend might not have been in a car at
all; might have been in a plane.

"We'll have a look at the very spot." He twirled the wheel and was away.

A half mile farther down the road, he paused to look at a map. "Not
quite here," he murmured. "About a quarter mile farther."

The car crept over another quarter of a mile. When he again came to a
halt he found himself on a stretch of paved road. "This is the spot
from which the last mes