About one o'clock, they were passing over a particularly rough piece of road, when, bang, went one of the rear tires. "Hang it all, there's a blowout," growled Reed, bringing the car to a stop. "But it won't take long to slip on the extra rim."
While they were waiting, Bob noticed that King did not watch him quite as closely as he had been doing, and he managed to slip his hand into his pocket and take out one of the notes he had written. In less than fifteen minutes, Reed announced that the job was finished, and just as they were about to start, Bob, carelessly hanging his hand over the edge of the car, let the note fall to the ground, unnoticed by either of the men. Nothing more worthy of note happened, except that he managed to drop a second note as they passed through the little town of Brunswick, and at about half past four, just as the dawn was beginning to light up the East, Reed drove the car into the yard of a house standing well back from the road.
"Here we are," he announced, and King at once gave a peculiar whistle, which was soon answered by the raising of a window on the second floor.
"Yes," was the answer. "What do you want?"
"Come down here, and we'll tell you," answered King, and the window was at once shut. In a few moments, they were joined by a short man, about forty years old, who Reed greeted as Frank, shaking his hand cordially.
"We're on our way to Boston, and we've got a young fellow here, who don't like our company any too well," explained King with a slight laugh, "and we want you to put us up till night, as it isn't good for our complexions to travel in the daytime. No one here, is there?"
"No, it's all right. Just drive the machine into the barn and come in. I'll have breakfast ready in a few minutes, and then you can turn in. Been riding all night, hain't ye?"
"Yes, and I guess we can do a little something in both the eating and sleeping line," answered King. "We haven't had any eats since we started."
They had a fairly good meal, after which the man called Frank said, "You and the kid can go up in the south room, on the third floor, you know which one, and Bill can sleep on the lounge in the parlor."
"All right," replied King, "Come on, kid."