But Roy didn’t linger.  He crept across the field, keeping close to a tall, dark hedge-row till he reached the automobile.  As he had guessed, neither of his captors knew how to run it, and it stood just where he had left it.

“Glory be!” thought the boy, climbing in, “I’m all right, now.  I don’t know where this road goes to, and it’s too narrow to turn round, but I’ll keep straight on and I’m bound to land somewhere.”

He turned on the gasoline and set the spark.  But the engine didn’t move.

“Queer,” thought Roy.

He got out and walked round to the front and then the rear of the car.  There was a strong smell of gasoline there.  Stooping down, he found the ground was saturated with the fuel.  What had happened was plain enough.  The cunning rascals who had captured him had drained the tank of gasoline.  The auto was as helpless as if it had not had an engine in it at all.

“Well, this is a fine fix,” thought Roy.  “However, there’s nothing for it now, but to keep on.  Those ruffians are cleverer than I gave them credit for.”

Stealing softly toward the woods, the boy sped into their dark shadows.  Aided by the flickering light of the moon, he made good progress through the gloomy depths.  He did not dare to slacken his pace till he had traveled at least half a mile.  Then he let his footsteps lag.

“Not much chance of their discovering me now, even if they have awakened to the fact that I have escaped,” he said to himself, as he strode on.

Suddenly he emerged on a strip of road that somehow had a familiar look.  He was still looking about when a strange thing happened.

There came the sound of rapid footsteps approaching him, and the quick breathing of an almost spent runner.  Then came a sound as if somebody was scuffling not far from him and suddenly a voice he knew well rang out: 

“Prescott, you young scoundrel, I’ll get you yet!”

The voice was that of Lieut.  Bradbury.

“Well, how under the sun does Lieut.  Bradbury know that I’m here?” marvelled the amazed boy, stopping short.

At the same instant, from the direction in which the naval officer’s shout had come, a slender dark figure came racing toward him.

CHAPTER XIV.

HOW THEY WORKED OUT.

Roy made a desperate clutch at the figure as it raced past, evidently fleeing from an unseen peril.  That that peril was Lieut.  Bradbury, Roy did not for an instant doubt, as he could hear the officer’s shouts in his undoubted voice close at hand.

The boy’s hands grasped the unknown’s collar, but at the same instant, with an eel-like squirm, the figure dived and twisted.  Suddenly it bent down and scooped up a handful of sandy gravel and flung the stuff full in Roy’s face.  Blinded, the boy staggered back and the other darted off like a deer.

The next instant two heavy hands fell on Roy’s shoulders and he felt himself twisted violently about.  And then a voice—­Lieut.  Bradbury’s voice—­said: