"Yes, sir, they have went. I don't know nothing else about it," spoke the young fellow employed as general utility man in Knight & Wilder's garage. His principal work consisted of polishing metal and pumping up tires, but laboring under an impression that he was an automobile salesman, he put on very swaggering airs. Just now he affected scarcely to notice three boys who made inquiry concerning the proposed tour of Phil Way and his friends.

Mr. Knight, coming up at the moment, told the important young gentleman in an undertone that his deportment in the establishment was not that of publicity. Such being the case, he sent the youth to gather up some tools which a touring party had borrowed and left lying on the curb, as was certainly very good of them and very honest.

Then Mr. Knight quizzed the three lads, who were none other than Gaines, Pickton and Perth. It appeared, he said, with a sly smile, that Phil Way and his party had gone away on a trip. Then he asked them about their own plans, but they knew his friendliness toward the four chums too well to divulge a great deal. Still, they could not help showing the chagrin they felt upon learning that the Auto Boys had really departed the preceding day.

Seeing their ill-humor in the matter the senior partner of the establishment made various remarks to the effect that none but the most active and alert individuals could expect to cope successfully with such clever chaps as Billy Worth, Phil Way, MacLester and Jones. Indeed, he was of the opinion, he said, that no one—referring to no person in particular, of course—but in general, no one,—need feel disturbed if Phil Way and his crowd of fellows did get ahead of him or them; because Phil and Billy and the others were really exceptionally able men,—in fact, quite out of the ordinary with regard to intelligence and good judgment.

The whole effect of Mr. Knight's discourse, as he no doubt intended, was to make Gaines really sour, Pickton's vanity decidedly ruffled and Freddy Perth deeply humiliated, sick at heart and ready to admit that he was no match for such fellows as Way had gathered about him.

"Oh, come on!" growled Pick, at last, and when a half minute later the three were again in Gaines' Roadster at the curb outside, he slammed in the clutch so violently that Soapy just escaped being thrown out. To the Automobile Club, to the Park Garage,—to all places they considered in the remotest degree likely to afford information of the direction the Auto Boys had taken, the Trio went.

With furious impatience but still vainly, they hustled from one end of the city to another. Repeatedly they drove past Dr. Way's residence, as if to make sure, time after time, that none of the four friends was about the green and yellow shed. All they could learn was that the chums had driven away, their car laden as if they meant to go to the Pacific Coast, at least, the preceding afternoon.

"I thought it was funny that only Way and Jones went to the ball game. And they did it just for a blind, too!" said Pickton grimly.

"You thought nothing of the kind!" growled Gaines. "Least if you did, it's a fine time to be telling it!"

"Well, I guess they haven't seen the last of us yet, anyway, eh?" Pick answered in that way in which he so often knuckled to Soapy's humor, leading that young gentleman on to do the thing he himself most wished to do.

"I should rather guess they hadn't," Gaines responded, as if the idea of pursuit were wholly his own,—"I'll show 'em a trick or two yet."

"The first thing is to find out where they are; at least, which way they went," put in Perth, quietly.

Gaines turned on him angrily. "What's that got to do with it? You leave that to me!" he said.

And while it would appear that the information Fred mentioned was, under all the circumstances, quite essential and really did have quite a great deal to do with the case, that young gentleman made only a wry face in answer. Soapy did not see him. Quite possibly Perth did not intend that he should.

In fruitless running from place to place the three boys spent the day. Repeatedly were they on the verge of falling out with one another completely. Only because Pickton bore Gaines' insolence in silence, or turned it aside by some flattering or cajoling remark, did these two get on at all in this time of trouble and disappointment,—the sort of time that really measures friendships and motives.

Perth was content to have little to say, usually accepting the suggestions and remarks of the others without comment. He drove the car, for the most part, and as he liked it very much, earnestly hoped the proposed long trip following after the Auto Boys would not be abandoned.

Wednesday came and the Trio, glum and despondent, talked a great deal, again came very near to serious quarreling, and achieved nothing. And now the objects of their chiefest interest and the cause of their chagrin were two days upon their way. But whither?

"'Three stones piled on top of each other to mark the place,'" mused Pickton over and over again. "They think they have something great in sight, but I'll bet they don't know exactly what, any more than we do. And they think they're so plagued smart! We've just got to take some of the conceit out of 'em."

"That's what!" Soapy Gaines asserted, but rather dubiously.

"Might as well talk in our sleep, for all the good just talk's doing," Perth was moved at last to say with some asperity; and his views would appear to be not far wrong. However, he was called a pessimist, or some other word amounting to the same thing, by Pickton, while Soapy insisted quite violently, "You leave that to me."

The fact that the Auto Boys had disappeared almost as if by magic and at a time when their machine was supposed to be indefinitely laid up for repairs, Pickton and Gaines were obliged reluctantly to admit.

That their intention of following after the chums looked more and more ridiculous as the hours passed, and they had no notion whatever as to the direction they should take, was something of which they did not care to be reminded. Yet it is likely that for want of any clue whatever, and their inability to find one,—for none of the three was particularly resourceful,—the Chosen Ones would have been forced to abandon their scheme at last, but for the merest chance by which some valuable information came to them.

Early on Thursday Freddy Perth sat looking over the morning paper while Soapy and Pick were starting a fresh discussion of the necessity of taking some of the conceit out of someone, needless to mention whom. The three were on the lawn at Perth's home. The Roadster stood at the curb.

MARSHAL MIRED

SAGERSGROVE OFFICIAL PULLED OUT OF SWAMP BY YOUTHS HE PURSUED.

The foregoing headlines came to Fred's notice as he tried to read while still following the conversation of his two friends, thread-bare though their subject now assuredly was. Half mechanically at first, then with lively interest he noted the following:

"Sagersgrove, June—In a light automobile in which they had set out to overtake and arrest four youthful tourists from Lannington who passed through Sagersgrove yesterday, Marshal Wellock and Eli Gouger, the latter a self-appointed detective, plunged over a bank into Cowslip marshes west of here last night. Both were buried to their necks in mire.

"The locality is practically a wilderness and the automobile would have settled beyond recovery in the swamp but for the merest accident of assistance being quickly obtained. The touring party the officers were after had encamped on a ridge of high land a half-mile beyond and responded to the cries for aid. Wellock and Gouger were able to drag themselves out of the marsh and the car of the tourists pulled their automobile out when only the seat remained above mud. Marshal Wellock was saved the necessity of arresting his rescuers for it developed that his suspicion that the youths had stolen their car was unfounded. The four strangers had themselves taken the marsh road by mistake. They were piloted to the State pike by the officers."

Having read this interesting item through twice, the second time very slowly and thoughtfully, Freddy Perth again listened to the conversation of Pickton and Gaines. They still discussed the possible whereabouts of the Auto Boys.

"Seems likely to me that they may have gone west,—away out through Sagersgrove and beyond," observed young Mr. Perth, after a minute or two, a self-complacent twinkle in his eye.

"About as likely as a muley cow having horns, eh, Gaines?" Pick answered.

"Or a—or a dog or anybody else having 'em," Soapy responded, lamely.

"Well, of course I never did know anything about it, and of course you two do know all about it. Still, when you get through with all this stuff you've said over and over ever since Tuesday, till honestly I'm sick of hearing it, just read that!"—and Perth held out the newspaper, his finger indicating the important item. There was triumph unlimited in his manner.

"Aw, let's see!" growled Pickton, doubtingly. Perth's self-satisfied smile irritated him. He took the paper and, Soapy peering over his shoulder, both read the item through.

"Humph! May be them and it may not," was Pick's comment.

"Don't be a hogshead! It's them all right," Gaines answered brusquely. "Why, they're two hundred miles away by this time!"

"Yes, sir! And they're headed for the Gold Cup road races at Queensville," put in Perth, quickly. "That's just where that old State pike goes. I remember seeing the map!"

Reluctantly Pickton admitted that the tourists mentioned in the newspaper dispatch must be Phil Way's party. Inwardly he denounced his luck that he himself had not been first to discover the news. Reluctantly, too, he admitted that the four chums were apparently headed for the Gold Cup automobile races,—a series of road contests over a twenty-six mile course, scheduled for Saturday of the following week. However,—"Don't see, though, what that mystery of the 'three stones piled up to mark the place,' that they seem to make so much of, has to do with races," he persisted.

"Maybe they're going to have a lunch stand at the track. Maybe they rented space for it by mail and had three stones piled up so's they'd know their place when they got there. Just like that bunch, figuring to earn some money!"

This thought, advanced by Soapy, really did that young gentleman credit, he so rarely had an idea of his own. And although Pick declared as boldly as he felt prudent, that the three stones he had heard mentioned so mysteriously had been placed one upon another long years before, which fact he had also heard stated, the former insisted that his own notion of the matter was correct.

While in no sense agreeing as to this, Pickton, for reasons of his own, carried the discussion no further. In his own mind was the thought that he, at least, would find out if the three stones did not mark some spot vastly more important than Soapy pictured. Let Gaines and Perth think what they might, the main thing was to be starting in pursuit.

"If it's us for Sagersgrove and the old State pike west, we can't move too fast," he said. "We can trail them all right from there, and catch them by Sunday, I'll bet!"

Gaines and Perth gave prompt acquiescence. The Roadster was run to its home garage at once, and there followed the trying packing and repacking of touring equipment which inexperience always encounters.

Preparations for a hurried departure had been going forward, in a haphazard way, for a long time. The result was an accumulation of much baggage that was not needed, and the utter absence of several items both desirable and necessary. Out of such chaos order was brought before noon, however, and the three lads separated to meet again at one o'clock.

Their good-bys were said, their car at last lacked nothing which could well be carried on a machine of its type, and the Chosen Trio headed toward Sagersgrove promptly at the hour named.

"Now burn up the road," quoth Mr. Soapy Gaines; and Perth, at the steering wheel, answered, "We'll see the Gold Cup races, anyhow."

"Enough more than races, you take it from me," said young Mr. Pickton, grimly, still thinking of—what?