“Of course!” came from both of the others.

“Done by our enemies!”

“Sure.”

“Ritter and his cronies.”

“Well, we’d have to prove that,” answered Andy, slowly.

“Don’t you believe it, Andy?”

“I do; but that isn’t proof.”

“And that isn’t getting us to Point View Lodge,” came from Pepper.  “I guess we’ll have to walk!” he added, with something like a groan.

“Walk!  We can’t walk that distance,” replied the young major.

“Well, we can’t trust ourselves on these machines.  We might if we had lots of time, but that we haven’t got.”

The three cadets stared blankly at each other.  Here they were on a lonely road, and what to do none of them knew.

“Oh, if I only had Ritter here wouldn’t I punch his head good!” muttered Pepper.

“Ritter will keep.  Let us look over the machines and make up our minds what is to be done,” said Jack.

The more they inspected the wheels the more hopeless appeared the task of fixing them up so they could be used.

“We simply haven’t got time to bother with them,” announced Jack.  “We’ve got to get to the Lodge some other way.”

“Well, what way?” asked Andy.

“I wonder if we could hire a rig at the next farmhouse.”

“Well, we can try that,” answered Pepper.

Trundling their bicycles, they hurried along the country road until they reached a farmhouse.

“Looks as if they were all out or gone to bed,” was Jack’s comment, for not a light showed about the place.

“We’ll soon know,” returned Pepper, and he pounded lustily on the front door.

There was no answer to this summons, and he pounded again.  But nobody appeared.

“Gone away for the day, I guess,” he said.  “Now what?”

“Let us leave our wheels in the barn,” said Jack.  “We can come back for them any time.”

This they did, and after a look around the place, to make certain nobody was there, they passed out on the road once more.  Pepper looked at his watch.

“Fifteen minutes to six,” he announced.

“Oh, we’ll never get there on time,” groaned Andy.

“We’ll be lucky if we get there at all to-night,” answered the young major.

“They are looking for us by now,” came from Pepper.  “Wonder what they will think when we don’t show up?”

“They’ll think we are pretty mean, I guess,” answered the acrobatic youth.

“Here comes some kind of a turnout now!” cried Pepper.

He pointed down the highway.  They could see a lantern swinging idly to and fro.  It was hung under a farm-wagon, and presently they saw the turnout, drawn by a pair of good-looking horses.  The wagon was filled with barrels of potatoes, and on the seat sat a raw-boned old farmer, half asleep.

“Hello, there!” challenged Jack out of the darkness.  “Hold up a minute, please!”