After a moment Joe slipped quickly back to the nearest apple tree and, making himself as small as possible, stared thoughtfully through the head-high crotch at the back of the shed. Low-hanging branches concealed him and gathering twilight was already making objects uncertain. Joe did some hard thinking during the next five minutes. He wanted very much to see what was in that automobile in the shed, but the risk would be great. Even if he managed an entrance through a window there was the possibility of being caught by the sudden return of one of the men. Getting out of a window in a hurry is not always an easy matter. Besides, he reflected, he was practically certain what he would find if he did investigate; as certain as a fellow could be without actually seeing. He relinquished thought of further investigation and considered, instead, how to circumvent the thieves. For Joe was quite sure that they were thieves. He was quite sure that he had found the headquarters of the gang who had been stealing bicycles in Central City. As he figured it out, the members of the gang stole the wheels and brought them out here to this deserted and almost forgotten house and hid them away until they had enough to make a load. Then they were placed in the automobile――having been, perhaps, first taken down and compactly bundled in burlap――and transported over the road to Chicago. How many there were in the gang he didn’t know; three, at least――not counting Gyp! From what he had overheard, it was plain that the men meant to make a start as soon as they had eaten supper. Somehow, he must communicate with the police, and that speedily. Once out of the town there were half a dozen roads they might take, and while by telephoning ahead, they might be intercepted there was always the chance that they might slip through. Whatever was to be done should be done at once. Joe wondered if there was a telephone at the Drayton house. He was pretty certain, though, that there wasn’t; pretty certain, indeed, that in coming out here he had left the last telephone pole well over a half-mile nearer town. Therefore the best thing to do was to get to the nearest telephone as soon as possible and call up the police station. With a last look at the shadowy bulk of the shed, and tossing the packet of meat away, he crept back through the orchard and climbed the fence again. Beyond it, he sacrificed caution to speed and ran as fast as the uneven ground would let him. As he had suspected, no telephone wire entered the Drayton house, nor were there any poles in sight along the road toward which he hurried. To his disgust, he mistook the clump of bushes where he had hidden his bicycle and wasted more than one precious minute finding it. At last, though, he was mounted and pedaling hard over the lumpy, rutted road toward the distant city.