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Page 60
"That's so," agreed his companion. "And so the only thing to do
is to travel a bit both ways. The path, or road, or whatever you
call it, is plainly enough marked here, though you can't always
pick out the tire marks. They show only on bare ground. The grass
doesn't leave any tracks that we can see, though doubtless they
are there.
"But as for thinking this car is the same one the marks of
which you saw on the lonely moor, the night you heard the call
for help--that's going too far, Tom Swift."
"Yes, I realize that. Of course there must be more than one car
with tires which have square protuberances. But it's worth taking
a chance on--following this clew."
"Oh, sure!" agreed Jackson.
"The only question is, then, which way to go," returned Tom.
They settled that, arbitrarily enough, by going on in the
direction they had started after leaving the stranded airship.
They followed a half-defined path, and were rewarded by getting
occasional glimpses on bare ground of the odd tire marks.
Through a devious winding way, now hidden amid a lane of trees,
and again cutting across an open space, the path led. They saw
the marks often enough to make sure they were on the right trail,
and in one place they saw several different patches of the odd
marks.
They went on perhaps half a mile more. when they came to a
lonely road and saw where the car had turned from that into the
wood-lot, as Tom called the place where his craft had settled
down.
"Look!" cried the young inventor to Jackson. "They've been here
more than once, and have gone along the road in both directions.
They seem to have used this turning into the lot as a sort of
stopping place."
This was plain enough from an examination of the marks in the
sandy soil of the road, which was one not often used. The
automobile with the queer, square marks on the tires had turned
into the lot, coming and going in both directions.
"This settles it!" cried Tom, when he finished making an
examination. "There's something farther back in this lot that
we've got to see. This auto has been coming and going, and we
should have followed the tracks the other way from the point
where we first saw them, instead of coming this way."
"Except that we've learned the place of departure," suggested
Jackson. "Evidently the wood-lot is a blind alley. The car goes
in, but it can come out only just at this point, or, at least, it
does."
"That's right!" agreed Tom. "Now the thing to do is to follow
our track back to where we started. There must be some place
where the car went to--some headquarters, or meeting place with
some one, farther back in the lot. If we can only follow the
trail back as well as we did coming, we may find out something."
"Well, let's try, anyhow," suggested Jackson.
They had no difficulty in making their way back to the spot
where they had first seen the queer marks. But from then on their
task was not so easy. For sandy or bare patches of earth were not
frequent, and they had to depend on these to give them direction,
for the road was overgrown and not well defined.
Often they would search about for some time after leaving one
patch of the marks before they found another that would justify
them in keeping on.
"They have headquarters, or a rendezvous, somewhere back in
this lot!" declared Tom, as they hurried on. "I think we're on
the track of a mystery."
"Unless it turns out that some farmer has treated himself to an
auto with new tires of square tread, and is hauling wood," said
Jackson. "It may turn out that way."
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