“I’d rather find my motor-cycle, and a valuable model which was on it, than locate those men,” went on Tom.  “They also took some papers from me.”

Then he told how he had started for Albany, adding his theory of how he had been attacked and carried away in the auto.  The latter part of it was borne out by the testimony of Mr. Blackford.

“What I know about it,” said the farmer, when his son Jed had arrived on the scene with a lantern and his badge, “is that jest about supper time I saw an automobile stop down the road a bit, It was gittin’ dusk, an’ I saw some men git out.  I didn’t pay no attention to them, ‘cause I was busy about the milkin’.  The next I knowed I seen some one strikin’ matches in my wagon shed, an’ I come out to see what it was.”

“The men must have brought me all the way from the church shed near Centreford to here,” declared Tom.  “Then they lifted me out and put me in your shed.  Maybe they left my motor-cycle also.”

“I didn’t see nothin’ like that,” said the farmer.  “Is that what you call one of them two-wheeled lickity-split things that a man sits on the middle of an’ goes like chain-lightning?”

“It is,” said Tom.  “I wish you’d help me look for it.”

The farmer and his son agreed, and other lanterns having been secured, a search was made.  After about half an hour the motor-cycle was discovered in some bushes at the side of the road, near where the automobile had stopped.  But the model was missing from it, and a careful search near where the machine had been hidden did not reveal it.  Nor did as careful a hunt as they could make in the darkness disclose any dues to the scoundrels who had drugged and robbed Tom.

CHAPTER XVI.

BACK HOME

“We’ve got to organize a regular searchin’ party,” declared Jed Blackford, after he and his father, together with Tom and the farmer’s hired man, had searched up and down the road by the light of lanterns.  “We’ll organize a posse an’ have a regular hunt.  This is the worst crime that’s been committed in this deestrict in many years, an’ I’m goin’ to run the scoundrels to earth.”

“Don’t be talkin’ nonsense, Jed,” interrupted his father.  “You won’t catch them fellers in a hundred years.  They’re miles an’ miles away from here by this time in their automobile.  All you can do is to notify the sheriff.  I guess we’d better give this young man some attention.  Let’s see, you said your name was Quick, didn’t you?”

“No, but it’s very similar,” answered Tom with a smile.  “It’s Swift.”

“I knowed it was something had to do with speed,” went on Mr. Blackford.  “Wa’al, now, s’pose you come in the house an’ have a hot cup of tea.  You look sort of draggled out.”

Tom was glad enough to avail himself of the kind invitation, and he was soon in the comfortable kitchen, relating his story, with more detail, to the farmer and his family.  Mrs. Blackford applied some home-made remedies to the lump on the youth’s head, and it felt much better.