"What for?" asked his comrade, quickly. "I'd get him to take a look at this arm, that's what."

"Huh! dangerous business, Jim. Don't you think of it 'less it's just positively necessary. Delays might cost us dear. There's going to be a big h.e.l.lo when our old friend gets out of that sleep."

Frank realized that the men were apparently getting to that point where they cared little how much he knew. They evidently meant to make such use of him as seemed necessary. Once he thought that it might be a good thing if he pretended to lose control of the car, just as Jim had evidently done. Then he changed his mind, and for two very good reasons.

In the first place, there was always the risk of being hurt himself in the consequent collision with a tree. Frank could not forget that his duty was to keep himself in good condition, so long as his school looked to him to lead his team to victory in the triangular series of football contests. Then, again, he seemed to feel that it would be cowardly to desert the post into which a strange accident had thrust him.

Better stick it out until something cropped up whereby he could make at least a try to defeat the purposes of these two rogues. He had heard enough to want to know more. Probably they would not seek to injure him so long as he made no positive move toward interfering with their game, whatever that might be.

They were talking again. Once more he strained for hearing in the hope of picking up further clues that would enlighten him with regard to their aims.

"It's the safest way, Bart. If they can't get word to Fayette till mornin', we can give 'em the laugh. You've just _got_ to do it," said the wounded man, with a degree of force that marked him as the head of the expedition.

"All right, if you say so, Jim. I'd a done it up the other road, if you hadn't banged us into that tree. Say when," replied the other, who was moving about as though doing something.

Frank managed to take a swift look over his shoulder. It only puzzled him the more, for Jim seemed to be fastening something about the lower part of his legs. What could he want leggings for?

And what could it be that Jim insisted he should do?

"I know of a doctor about two miles further on here," Frank said, thinking that it might delay matters some if they concluded to stop over; at least give him a chance to either escape, or render the machine useless for further flight.

"You do, eh? Well, tell us when we get there, and p'raps I might make up my mind to hold over a bit. Are you ready, Bart?" said the heavier man.

"Yes. As well here as anywhere," came the reply.

"Bring her to a stop, kid; here, alongside this telegraph pole.

That's good. Now, Bart, do it!"

Frank felt more than curious to know what the men had in mind. As soon as the car came to a stand the lighter man, who had not been hurt in the accident, jumped rather clumsily from the tonneau.

Frank noticed this with surprise, for up to now he had looked upon the other as rather agile. Could he have been injured after all, and was just beginning to feel the effect of his headlong plunge into the bushes?

Judge of his utter amazement when he saw Bart at once seize hold of the nearby telegraph pole and begin to climb up with a series of st.u.r.dy kicks that apparently glued each foot in succession to the pole. Frank no longer wondered, for he knew that the man had been strapping a pair of lineman's climbing spurs to his legs when bending down in the tonneau of the stolen car!

CHAPTER XVII

A DESPERATE REMEDY

"All right, Bart?" called out the man in the car, as the other seemed to have reached the cross-bars far up the pole, over the lower of which he threw a leg, after the confident manner of one accustomed to such antics.

"Sure. It was dead easy," came floating down from above.

"Then get to work, and make a clean job of it. Look here, boy, don't you be thinkin' of leavin' us in the lurch just now. I ain't fit to run this shebang, so we need you, and need you bad. I reckon you know what this is, don't you?" and the fellow showed something that glistened like steel in the mellow moonlight.

Frank could not help feeling a little chill; still, he, was not given to showing the white feather easily.

"Of course I do. It isn't the first time I've seen a revolver," he managed to say, with a nervous little laugh.

"All right, then; don't get gay, and make me ugly, or something might happen. Hey! Bart, why don't you get busy?" raising his voice again.

There was a sharp click, and a clear "tang," as of a strained wire snapping. Frank understood now what was doing. These men had fear of pursuit, and were cutting the telegraph wires in order to prevent direct communication between Columbia and Fayette!

A second and a third metallic "pink" announced that the man up among the cross bars was indeed using his cutters with effect. At that rate he would have the entire sheaf of wires severed in another minute or so.

The matter began to a.s.sume gigantic proportions to the boy, as he sat there in the car and listened. Certainly these men must have desperate need for delay in the pursuit, if they went to such extremes in order to accomplish it. And they seemed to have provided against such a contingency, too, which would indicate that they were now only carrying out a part of a well-laid plan.

What could he do? Half a dozen ideas thronged into his brain, but they seemed so utterly useless that he discarded them as fast as they arose. He must in some manner get away from their company before arriving in the neighborhood of Fayette; because if they were as desperate as they appeared the chances were they might see fit to tie him up, and leave him under some farmer's haystack, where he would not be found for hours.

"That light ahead is the doctor's place," he said, finally.

The man called Bart had apparently severed the last of the wires.

He was even then coming down the pole hastily, as though eager to be on the move.

"It is, eh?" remarked the other, with a plain sneer, as though he guessed the sudden hope that had leaped into being in the heart of the boy; "well, seein' as how we've been held up here so long I reckon I'll have to let that chance get by me. Seems like I can move that arm a little. P'raps she aint broke after all."

Bart jumped rather clumsily into the car.

"Hit her up now, kid. We ought to make up some for the time we put in here. Been a preachin' to him, ain't you, Jim? It's just as well that he knowed how things lie, 'cause we can't afford to have any foolin'?" he observed.

"I warned him that we wouldn't put up with any hoss play. If he tries to run us into the bushes he's goin' to get himself into a peck o' trouble. Likewise, keep a still tongue in your mouth when we go past the doctor's house; understand!"

Jim thought it good policy to accompany these last words with a vigorous prod between Frank's shoulder blades; and there could be no mistaking the nature of the hard object with which he did this punching.

To tell the truth Frank had really thought of doing some shouting just when they were in front of the little house where the country doctor lived. His plans had been in a sort of chaotic state at best, for he could not see just how anything of this sort might avail to divorce him from the unwelcome company of these two rascals.

"I'm not saying a word," he remarked, with another little nervous laugh, as the speeding machine pa.s.sed the home of the medical man, perched on a little knoll.

While he bent forward and seemed to be scanning the road ahead, so as to avoid a collision in case they met another vehicle coming the other way, Frank was again doing his best to conjure up some wild plan that might promise him the desired chance to escape from the company of these two desperate men.

He now had not the least doubt but that they were thieves of some sort. What he had heard them say with reference to some person who would not be apt to wake up for several hours, made him think again of Doctor Shadduck.

The gentleman was a rich man, and accustomed to dealing in many enterprises that necessitated the employment of considerable means. Possibly these men had managed to hoodwink the capitalist in some fashion, and when their opportunity came had run away with something valuable belonging to him. They may even have used some of the good doctor's chloroform, or other drugs, to put him in a condition whereby he could not give the alarm or start a pursuit for some hours.

It was really thrilling; but Frank had no desire to see anything further of his unwelcome companions. He wished he had the nerve to turn the car from the road; but the chances of being injured himself discounted this desire.

Surely there ought to be some other way whereby he could say good-bye in a hurry. They would not search long for him if he once got away.

Since Jim admitted that his arm was feeling better perhaps he would try and guide the machine into Fayette. Meanwhile Frank could be trying in some fashion to warn the authorities.

The sound of their voices just reached him as he sat there thinking. They were talking low now, as if desirous of not letting him hear, but Frank possessed keen ears, and could catch certain words, especially in Jim's heavier tones.

"It's just got to be did sooner or later. He could ruin all our game if he wanted to. I've risked too much now to take chances.

Don't you go to showing any of your squeamishness, Bart; I won't have it," he was growling.

They must be referring to the boy who sat at the wheel and guided the moving car. Bart evidently said something more, for presently the voice of Jim once more came to the listening ears of the one so deeply interested.

"He ain't goin' to be hurted, I tell you. But his mouth has got to be kept closed, unless you want the hull county on our heels. I seen that feller play, and I know what he's capable of doin'. So just shut up, Bart, and do what I says, hear?"