“Look here, Chunky!” exclaimed Jerry, with one look at his stout chum and another at the tail-end of the wagon. “Is this a joke, or what?”

“Mostly what, I guess,” put in Ned. “If it’s a joke I don’t see the point, giving us heart disease that way. What do you mean? Was it Crooked Nose?”

“That’s what I said,” retorted Bob as nearly sharp as his bubbling good-nature ever permitted him to be. “I tell you I saw the same man, with the same crooked nose, that ran into you, Jerry, in the restaurant that night in Cresville when we had the fire.”

“Naturally if it was the same man he had the same nose,” said Ned.

“Well, it was the same man all right,” went on Bob. “I don’t very often forget a face.”

“Nor the time to eat,” added Jerry with a laugh. “Never mind, it will soon be time, Chunky. Don’t let your stomach get the best of you.”

[175]

“What do you mean?” asked Bob.

“I mean I guess you’re getting delirious from want of food. You’re seeing things.”

“I tell you I saw that man with the crooked nose!” asserted Bob. “And moreover I think it’s our duty to follow him, and see what he’s doing here. He may have my father’s watch, and Mrs. Hopkins’ brooch.”

“Maybe that’s true,” agreed Jerry. “But we’ve got pretty slim evidence to act on. And it seems out of the question to believe that he would be away down here. You probably did see a man with a crooked nose, Bob, but there are lots such.”

“I’m sure it was the same one we saw in Cresville,” insisted the stout lad. “Come on, let’s have a look down that road. We’ve got time.”

But they had not, for just then the order came to fall in, and the march was resumed. But it was only a short hike to the place where camp was to be made for the night, and when Bob found that it was not more than two miles to the road down which he had seen the wagon turn, he said to his chums:

“Say, fellows, we’ve got to investigate this.”

“Investigate what?” asked Jerry, shifting his pack to ease a lame spot on one shoulder.

“Crooked Nose,” replied Bob. “We can ask for a little time off, and take a hike by ourselves[176] down this road. Maybe that fellow works on a farm around here. Though what he’s doing so far from Cresville gets me. I’ll wager it isn’t for any good. But we ought to look him up.”

“S’pose we find he’s the wrong man, even if he has a crooked nose?” asked Ned, not eager for further hiking just then.

“We’ve got to take that chance,” Bob went on. “I’m sure, from the look I had of him, that he’s the same one. Are you with me?”

“Well, you needn’t ask that,” was Jerry’s answer. “Of course we’re with you. And if this turns out a fizzle we won’t say we told you so, Chunky. It’s worth taking a chance on, though if we do find this is the same crooked-nosed chap we saw at the time of the fire, it isn’t going to prove that he robbed the Frenchman. If he got all that valuable stuff he wouldn’t be here—he’d be in the city having a good time.”

“We’ll have to be careful about making an accusation, I guess,” agreed the stout lad. “But if we find he is the same chap we saw we could telegraph to the police of Cresville and ask if he was wanted there. If he is, the police there could take the matter up with the police of this place. That’s the way they do it.”

“Are there any police here?” asked Ned, looking around with a smile, for they were in the midst[177] of a country that looked too peaceful to need officers of the law.

“Oh, they always have constables, deputy sheriffs or something in these villages,” said Jerry. “That part will be all right, Bob. Go to it.”

And “go to it” Bob did. As soon as the army had come to a stop and the supper mess had been served, the three motor boys sought and received permission to go off for a stroll. It was early evening, and they must be back within the guard lines at ten, they were told, but this would give them time enough.

Having traveled about as much as they had, the three friends had acquired a good general sense of direction, and they had noted the location of the highway down which Bob had said the crooked-nosed man had driven.

It was their plan to go back to this point and make some inquiries of any resident they might meet in regard to the existence, on some neighboring farm, of a man with a nose decidedly out of joint.

“His defect is such that it surely will have been noticed,” said Bob. “He’s a marked man if ever there was one, and he ought to be easy to trace.”

As the three friends left the camp, armed with written permission to be absent until “taps” that night, Jerry, looking across the field, where the dog tents were already up, said:

[178]

“There goes Pug Kennedy. He must have a pass, too, for he’s going toward the lines.”

“I hope he isn’t going to trail us,” remarked Bob. “If we make this capture, or give information by which Crooked Nose is caught, we want the honor ourselves,” he added, with a grin.

“Oh, Pug doesn’t know anything about the Cresville fire,” declared Ned.

“He might,” insisted Bob. “He lives just outside the town, and he may have heard of the Frenchman’s loss and about Crooked Nose. Come on, let’s get going, and not have him ahead of us.”

............