Lenore strained her eyes and felt a stir of her pulses.  Jake’s voice was perturbing.  Was it strange that Nash slowed up a little where there was no apparent need?  Then Lenore saw a hand flash out of the side of the car ahead and throw a small, glinting object into the wheat.

“There!  Seen it again,” said Jake.

“I saw!...  Jake, mark that spot....  Nash, slow down,” yelled Anderson.

Lenore gathered from the look of her father and the cowboy that something was amiss, but she could not guess what it might be.  Nash bent sullenly at his task of driving.

“I reckon about here,” said Jake, waving his hand.

“Stop her,” ordered Anderson, and as the car came to a halt he got out, followed by Jake.

“Wal, I marked it by thet rock,” declared the cowboy.

“So did I,” responded Anderson.  “Let’s get over the fence an’ find what it was they threw in there.”

Jake rested a lean hand on a post and vaulted the fence.  But Anderson had to climb laboriously and painfully over the barbed-wire obstruction.  Lenore marveled at his silence and his persistence.  Anderson hated wire fences.  Presently he got over, and then he divided his time between searching in the wheat and peering after the strange car that was drawing far away.

Lenore saw Jake pick up something and scrutinize it.

“I’ll be dog-goned!” he muttered.  Then he approached Anderson.  “What is thet?”

“Jake, you can lambaste me if I ever saw the likes,” replied Anderson.  “But it looks bad.  Let’s rustle after that car.”

As Anderson clambered into his seat once more he looked dark and grim.

“Catch that car ahead,” he tersely ordered Nash.  Whereupon the driver began to go through his usual motions in starting.

“Lenore, what do you make of this?” queried Anderson, turning to show her a small cake of some gray substance, soft and wet to the touch.

“I don’t know what it is,” replied Lenore, wonderingly.  “Do you?”

“No.  An’ I’d give a lot—­Say, Nash, hurry!  Overhaul that car!”

Anderson turned to see why his order had not been obeyed.  He looked angry.  Nash made hurried motions.  The car trembled, the machinery began to whir—­then came a tremendous buzzing roar, a violent shaking of the car, followed by sharp explosions, and silence.

“You stripped the gears!” shouted Anderson, with the red fading out of his face.

“No; but something’s wrong,” replied Nash.  He got out to examine the engine.

Anderson manifestly controlled strong feeling.  Lenore saw Jake’s hand go to her father’s shoulder.  “Boss,” he whispered, “we can’t ketch thet car now.”  Anderson resigned himself, averted his face so that he could not see Nash, who was tinkering with the engine.  Lenore believed then that Nash had deliberately stalled the engine or disordered something, so as to permit the escape of the strange car ahead.  She saw it turn off the long, straight road ahead and disappear to the right.  After some minutes’ delay Nash resumed his seat and started the car once more.