Phil's "hello!" was none too cordial, but glad under any circumstances to meet someone from home, and quite overjoyed to show the Auto Boys that the Chosen Trio were on the spot, Perth was hastening forward.

Again Way looked anxiously in all directions, trying vainly to learn whence his friends had so mysteriously fled. No sight or sound of them could he discover.

"Got your car running again sooner'n you expected, didn't you?" grinned Freddy, coming close up. "When did you get in?"

"Not sooner than we expected—sooner than you expected, wasn't it?" responded Phil. "Haven't been here long. You came in this morning."

"How'd you know?" Perth demanded with a searching look.

"Bird told me," Phil smiled. "Where you staying?"

"Ask the bird that, too!" grinned Freddy.

"Well, see you later. Be here for the races, I take it," Way laughed, not at all put out by Perth's adroit reply to his own question. With a little wave of the hand he walked quickly away; but a glance over his shoulder a minute later assured him that Perth, Gaines and Pickton were following not far behind. The latter two had loitered in the background while the conversation with Fred was taking place.

If Phil was astonished to find himself so unexpectedly alone, it was apparent that the Trio were scarcely less so. Perth was certain he had seen Billy Worth at the same moment he had first seen Way. What had become of Billy and where were Dave and Paul?

Phil, himself, would have given something at this particular moment to have been able to answer these questions. Meanwhile it was obvious his first task was to escape from the three who followed. Where was Gaines' Roadster? If he could lead the Trio far enough from their car that they would not have that means of pursuit, it might be that Billy and the rest would come along in the Thirty, pick him up and thus enable all to make their escape quite readily.

Acting on this thought, Phil turned into the first residence street intersecting Main, the business thoroughfare. Even now he was but a few blocks distant from where the Thirty had been left. Surely, he reasoned, some one of his friends would be watching the direction he took. One of them would manage, some way, to get into communication with him, even if they did not come dashing up with the machine and effect his rescue.

Was it an instance of telepathy—the action of Billy's mind, or Paul's or Dave's or of all three, upon Phil Way's—that caused the latter to think of a sudden, rapid dash in the car, after the Trio had been led a safe distance from their own machine, as a likely means of escaping them? Such a thing is not impossible. It is not, indeed, improbable. And yet, although stranger instances of thought transference have been fully proved, it may have been after all only a coincidence that the plan that came into Phil's mind was exactly the one Billy Worth suggested to Paul and David and which they prepared to put into execution.

Very luckily had Worth made a dive into the crowd the moment he found himself and Phil observed by Freddy Perth. Thinking Way followed, he called with a quick gasp to MacLester and Jones and darted into an open stairway. Quickly as they could the three ran up the steps into a narrow hall on the second floor.

A window was open toward the street and Worth was not long in discovering how to put it to good use. In dismay he saw, with Paul and Dave peeping out over his shoulder, that Phil had fallen fairly into the enemy's hands. He could not hear the words exchanged with Perth, but realized how mystified Way was as he waved his hand and walked away.

"Of course they'll follow. Won't let him get out of their sight!" ejaculated Billy. "We've got to make a grand rush in the machine and get Phil away from them before they know what's happened."

"Just let him lead them quite a stretch away. Gaines' car is probably right near here," Paul put in, eagerly.

The suggestion was adopted. Then Jones volunteered to keep Way and the enemy both in sight while Billy and Dave brought the Thirty up.

Ten minutes later there was a sudden blast of a flying automobile's horn in one of Queensville's quiet streets. In another instant the car had slackened speed and a young man rushed from the sidewalk and climbed aboard. Like a flash the machine sped forward again, followed by a series of angry, disappointed yells from three other youths who also dashed out from the sidewalk as if they had thought of going along.

A good many people observing the rather mysterious performance, as they sat upon their lawns and porches, or strolled on the street, were decidedly at a loss to know what to make of it all.

"Oh, I guess we're no wizards at all! No, nothing like that! No wizards about us! Not at all!" chuckled Paul Jones in a perfect rapture of delight. "No, we're no wizards!"

And although Philip, William and David expressed themselves in somewhat different language, it was apparent that they, too, entertained pretty much the same opinion as the highly elated Mr. Jones with regard to their being "No wizards, at all," whatever that may signify.

Yet now that the Chosen Trio had been again outwitted and again left behind, temporarily at least, there remained the problem of keeping well beyond their sight and reach. To do this and to do it without permitting those persistent young gentlemen to bar the Thirty from entering the limits of Queensville was no small undertaking.

The town was of only a few thousand population, and even now when filled with strangers and with strange automobiles from the larger cities near by, it was apparent that at any moment the four friends appeared on the principal streets they might expect to meet the very persons they most wished to avoid.

MacLester emphatically declared himself in favor of letting the Trio "go hang." If they "wanted to tag along clear to the Ship woods," he did not care. They'd have principally their trouble for their pains. All they might discover as to the object of the expedition and the camp in that out-of-the-way place, would not, according to young Mr. MacLester's way of stating it, "Make 'em wise enough to hurt 'em." Whatever the reports they carried back to Lannington, no one would give them much credence anyway, he declared.

But Phil Way sturdily opposed any such surrender. The original determination to keep the real purpose of this long journey a secret could not be abandoned now, he argued, without a practical admission that Gaines and his followers had been too clever for them. Billy and Paul stood resolutely with Way. Meanwhile the Thirty had been traversing one dusty, unpaved street after another in the town's outskirts.

"They'll never be expecting to see us again to-day. Let's go back down town. If we keep our eyes open, we'll see them first, and that's all that's necessary," proposed Worth; and, being himself at the wheel, he turned the car toward the business district.

From no source came an objection. In ten minutes the machine was again standing just where it had been left before. Quite contrary to the expectations of the boys, also, they saw nothing whatever of the Trio, though they spent an hour looking about the little city and observing the hundreds of visitors.

Some had come, it appeared, simply for the day, to see the preparations for the great road races. Many were present because of a direct interest in the contests in one way or another and would remain until all was over. Racing drivers and the builders of their cars, automobile salesmen, tire men, newspaper men from many cities—motoring enthusiasts of a score of sorts and a hundred degrees of significance, from the young fellow who expected to own a runabout some day to the engineer who designed and would drive the most popular machine in the heavy car race—they were on the streets, in the hotels, thronging everywhere.

On barns, fences, trees, posts—anything that offered a chance to drive a nail, were signs, banners and all sorts of advertising matter. One might find himself informed on one post that he must use "Heapa" oil or be miserable for life. The very next post would tell him if he did not use "Slickem" oil he'd be sorry forever. And as the really quite conflicting announcements, admonitions, claims and assertions were in great variety and multiplied many times by their frequent repetition, any gentleman who might have set out to be guided by them would surely have had a serious time of it and have landed in a padded cell somewhere, sooner or later, undoubtedly.

In addition to the cosmopolitan character of the crowds—to say nothing of the diversity of the advertising posters and signs—were the town's decorations of flags and bunting everywhere. Then a band played on the steps of the Court House, in the heart of the little city, and the music, the chugging of engines, the confusion and excitement, the very odors—for where is the real motoring enthusiast who dislikes the smell of diffused gasoline fumes?—made a deep impression upon the Auto Boys. It is very much to be feared, indeed, that they started for Camp Golden at last much more intent upon seeing the races the following Saturday than upon delving into the secrets of the Ship woods the following morning.

By taking the longer route, followed by the race course, around to Gilroy, in going home, the four friends finished a complete circuit of the roads chosen for the stock car contest. In going to Queensville, it will be remembered, they turned due north and later almost directly west upon reaching the course, directly in front of the Gilroy post-office. From Queensville they ran almost directly south, thence east, northeast and north to Gilroy again.

The geographical situations of Camp Golden, Gilroy and Queensville the reader should have well in mind. Let him imagine a series of country roads forming a great, irregularly-shaped dipper. The handle is the road passing the Ship woods. Where the handle joins the dipper itself, six miles west of the Auto Boys' camp, is Gilroy, a crude little country hamlet—no more. The rim of the dipper represents the roads making up the racing circuit. Nearly half way around, to the right, that is, north, thence west from Gilroy, is Queensville—twelve miles distant. Continuing on around the rim is the little town of Chester, three miles beyond Queensville.

The "Ambulance station,"—a desperately sharp curve—marks the turn of the course to the east again, two miles further on. Then the edge of the dipper becomes very irregular as the road winds in and out through a wooded country, until at Far Creek Sawmill it strikes off due north. Four miles ahead is Gilroy again, which hamlet, by this way around, is fourteen miles from Queensville.

Much work had been done on the roads comprising the racing circuit to put them in condition, and as Phil Way remarked, on the homeward trip this Sunday afternoon, "There was certainly going to be some excitement." Yet little he guessed how much more than excitement, merely, was in store for himself and his friends.

"I'll bet there is," quoth Billy Worth, answering Way's remark. "It'll be some exciting, for instance, about the time we meet Gaines' Roadster somewhere around the track. That very choice Trio will be out every day, more or less, and whether we go one way or the other, it will be pure luck and nothing else if we don't come face to face with them some time before the races are over."

And Billy's view of the matter was nothing if not plausible. There was no way of reaching Queensville from the camp without following the course of the proposed races. There was no cross road leading even in the direction of that town. By a very long detour the result named might possibly be accomplished, it was true, but it would be like going from New York to Philadelphia by way of Albany and Harrisburg.

This Sunday afternoon it was most fortunate for the Auto Boys that they chose to complete the circuit the races would follow, when leaving Queensville for Camp Golden. Had they gone the other way a meeting with the Trio would have been certain, for that select company of young gentlemen spent several hours on the opposite side of the course vainly watching.

Guided only by the direction the Thirty had taken after the rescue of Phil Way, Gaines and his associates had set out in pursuit as rapidly as possible. Until dark they haunted the road to the north and east. Their utter lack of success was quite annoying.

In fact, Mr. Soapy Gaines became so irritated that his company could scarcely be called enchanting; unless, indeed, one were possessed of the peculiarity of enjoying being called a "crazy snapping turtle" and other like names, not well chosen, at least, if intended as terms of endearment. But as to Soapy's ruffled temper and conduct generally there will be opportunity for observation later. At this moment attention should return more directly to the Auto Boys.

"If we hadn't spent a whole half-day chasing around Queensville and back again, we might have had a good walk in the woods and maybe we would have found those three stones," growled Dave MacLester, toasting his hands over the campfire, for the evening had come on quite cold.

"Never mind, little one, never mind! You'll feel better after you've had your supper. Your poor, 'ittle tummy wants something. You'll feel better pretty soon." This language in a soft, fatherly tone from Paul Jones caused a smile. Even David smiled, too, for directly afterward Chef Billy announced the evening meal.

It was a pleasant thing to sit before the glowing fire, enjoying toasted crackers and toasted cheese after the major portion of the supper—baked beans, baked potatoes and bacon, and coffee, of course—was over. It was a pleasant thing to creep under the blankets in the tent, luxuriously tired, an hour and a half later.

Most exquisitely pleasant was it, also, to lie snug and comfortable listening to the tinkle of the little spring where the water flowed over the miniature cataract leading to the cleverly devised cooling system, and so to fall asleep at last.