Dave and Roger talked to the fruit-stand boy a few minutes longer, and then jumped into the automobile and rode up to the Bliss House, an old-fashioned hotel, standing on a corner and surrounded by a number of stately elm trees.

“I can’t understand this at all, Dave,” said Roger, while on the way. “What would take those girls uptown? They must have known that the train might come along at any minute, and then, if they weren’t on hand to get aboard, they’d be left.”

“It certainly is a mystery, Roger. All we can do is to follow up this clue and see where it leads to. From what that man who had the motorcycle said, and from what the lame boy told us, it is pretty certain that Jessie and Laura got off the train at the Crossing and did not get on again at this railroad station. And if they came up to the hotel here, they must have had some purpose in so doing.”

The country hotel was not a very busy place, 231and the chums found the clerk quite willing to give them all the information he could. He did not, however, remember the girls; nor did the proprietor of the place, who came up to see what was wanted, remember them.

“I don’t think they came here. Or, if they did, they didn’t come to the office,” said the clerk. “I was here all day, and I know.”

“Did you have any strangers around the place that day, so far as you can remember?” questioned Dave.

“None to stay. We had half a dozen drummers; but I know all of them, for they have been coming and going for a number of years.”

“Wait a minute! Come to think of it, there was something else happened that day which I thought was rather queer,” cried the hotel proprietor suddenly. He was a bald-headed man, and he began to scratch his hairless head vigorously. “Seems to me it was just about half an hour or so before that train came in, too,” he added, nodding his head emphatically.

“What was the thing that happened?” questioned Roger quickly.

“There was a big touring-car came down the Kapton road yonder. A man dressed as a chauffeur was driving the machine. He stopped his car and asked for directions, and then the car swung around and came to a stop down there 232near our stables. I sent the boy out to see if anything was wanted—the stable man being off on an errand—and the boy came back and said they wanted to know when that train would get in. Then the car moved over to the other side of the street and stood there for five or ten minutes. The chauffeur turned around in his seat to talk very earnestly to a couple who were in the car. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but they all seemed to be rather excited. Then the car went back down the road, and that was the last I saw of it.”

“It wasn’t a car that belonged around here, so far as you knew?” asked our hero.

“No, it didn’t belong around here. It was a great big heavy enclosed affair, and looked as if it had seen pretty rough usage—one of the mud-guards being quite battered. That was one reason why I took notice of it—I thought maybe they had been in some sort of an accident, especially when the chauffeur and the people in the car got to talking so excitedly among themselves.”

“Did you notice what kind of people they were?” asked Dave.

“I think the chauffeur was a foreigner. He had heavy dark hair and a small dark mustache. He wore a regular cap and goggles, and also a dust-coat.”

233“Who were the people in the car?” questioned the senator’s son.

“There were a man and a woman, and I should say they were rather elderly. The woman had a thick veil over her face, and the man wore a dust-coat buttoned up around his throat and a cap pulled far down over his forehead, and I think he had on smoked glasses. I thought the whole bunch might be foreigners, and that was another reason why I noticed them.”

“This is certainly interesting, but I don’t see how it connects up with the disappearance of the girls,” was Dave’s comment.

“Those gypsies all look like foreigners,” said Roger.

“Yes. But I don’t think any of them knows how to run an auto. They always use horses.”

“Oh, well, they might be getting up-to-date.”

Thinking that the incident of the strange touring-car might be worth following up, Dave and Roger left the hotel and ran their own automobile a distance along the Kapton road. From the hotel proprietor they had learned that this road led to the small village of Kapton two miles distant.

“This is a good deal like looking for a needle in a haystack,” was Roger’s comment.

“True, Roger. But if you took the haystack and went over it a wisp at a time, sooner or later you’d come on the needle,” answered Dave. 234“And that is what I propose to do in this case—I’m going to follow up every possible clue until we strike something.”

On the outskirts of Crandall they came upon a little country home where several children were enjoying themselves at a swing in the o............