“I’d like to take a look at my motor-cycle,” he said, after his second cup of tea.  “I want to see if those men damaged it any.  If they have I’m going to have trouble getting back home to tell my father of my bad luck.  Poor dad!  He will be very much worried when I tell him the model and his patent papers have been stolen.”

“It’s too bad!” exclaimed Mrs. Blackford.  “I wish I had hold of them scoundrels!” and her usually gentle face bore a severe frown.  “Of course you can have your thing-a-ma-bob in to see if it’s hurt, but please don’t start it in here.  They make a terrible racket.”

“No, I’ll look it over in the woodshed,” promised Tom.  “If it’s all right I think I’ll start back home at once.”

“No, you can’t do that,” declared Mr. Blackford.  “You’re in no condition to travel.  You might fall off an’ git hurt.  It’s nearly ten o’clock now.  You jest stay here all night, an’ in the mornin’, if you feel all right, you can start off.  I couldn’t let you go to-night.”

Indeed, Tom did not feel very much like undertaking the journey, for the blow on his head had made him dazed, and the chloroform caused a sick feeling.  Mr. Blackford wheeled the motor-cycle into the woodhouse, which opened from the kitchen, and there the youth went over the machine.  He was glad to find that it had sustained no damage.  In the meanwhile Jed had gone off to tell the startling news to near-by farmers.  Quite a throng, with lanterns, went up and down the road, but all the evidence they could find were the marks of the automobile wheels, which clues were not very satisfactory.

“But we’ll catch them in the mornin’,” declared the deputy sheriff.  “I’ll know that automobile again if I see it.  It was painted red.”

“That’s the color of a number of automobiles,” said Tom with a smile.  “I’m afraid you’ll have trouble identifying it by that means.  I am surprised, though, that they did not carry my motor-cycle away with them.  It is a valuable machine.”

“They were afraid to,” declared Jed.  “It would look queer to see a machine like that in an auto.  Of course when they were going along country roads in the evening it didn’t much matter, but when they headed for the city, as they probably did, they knew it would attract suspicion to ’em.  I know, for I’ve been a deputy sheriff ’most a year.”

“I believe you’re right,” agreed Tom.  “They didn’t dare take the motor-cycle with them, but they hid it, hoping I would not find it.  I’d rather have the model and the papers, though, than half a dozen motor-cycles.”

“Maybe the police will help you find them,” said Mrs. Blackford.  “Jed, you must telephone to the police the first thing in the morning.  It’s a shame the way criminals are allowed to go on.  If honest people did those things, they’d be arrested in a minute, but it seems that scoundrels can do as they please.”

“You wait; I’ll catch ’em!” declared Jed confidently.  “I’ll organize another posse in the mornin’.”