With a last look at the shadowy bulk of the shed, and tossing the packet of meat away, he crept back through the orchard and climbed the fence again. Beyond it, he sacrificed caution to speed and ran as fast as the uneven ground would let him. As he had suspected, no telephone wire entered the Drayton house, nor were there any poles in sight along the road toward which he hurried. To his disgust, he mistook the clump of bushes where he had hidden his bicycle and wasted more than one precious minute finding it. At last, though, he was mounted and pedaling hard over the lumpy, rutted road toward the distant city.
Twilight was coming fast now. He wondered how much time had elapsed since he had heard the house door close behind the men. He had, he figured, remained behind the shed a good minute before returning to the orchard, and had spent perhaps five minutes beside the tree and had probably consumed another five minutes in reaching the road and finding his bicycle. Consequently some twelve minutes had already gone by. If he got his telephone connection in another five minutes he would be doing very well indeed, and by the time the alarm was given nearly twenty minutes would have elapsed. In that time, reflected Joe, the thieves might well eat a hurried supper and start off on their journey. They had spoken of circling the center of the city and keeping along by the river, and if they did the car must go slowly, for the roads it would have to traverse were of dirt and little traveled, save for the mile or so of parkway that finally led to the bridge. The bridge! That was the place to watch for them! Then Joe’s sudden elation died a quick death. The thieves would have their choice of three bridges, after all, or, if they liked, could swing northward to Porterville and cross the river by the ferry. As he sped along making far slower progress than he desired, he watched anxiously for signs of a telephone. He had already covered a half-mile, he was sure, and still no poles came to sight. A suburban road, showing at long intervals a house of the poorer sort, led off to the right, and Joe slowed down and considered. This was the road the thieves would doubtless take if they held to their plan of following the river in its curve around the city. But there were no telephone poles on it and so it offered no attraction to the boy, and he was getting up speed once more when, from behind him, came the unmistakable roar of a motor. He looked back. Far down the road over which he had come two white eyes of light bored into the half darkness. Dismayed, Joe again slowed down, stopped, placed one foot on the ground and, undecided, waited. The approaching car came nearer and nearer, slowed a trifle and whisked its white orbs to the branching road. There were two forms on the front seat and the back of the car appeared to be piled high with furniture. Against the lighter sky Joe caught the silhouette of table legs stretched pathetically, helplessly upward. Then the car was gone.