Elmer, being free to make a sprint, since he had no machine to trundle along, suddenly left his chums in the lurch. They saw him leaping through the low underbrush as might a deer. "Hurrah! He'll get him!" shouted Toby. "Twenty-three for yours, Mr. Wandering Willie!" added Nat. "Don't I wish Elmer would just hold him till we come up," added the other, with a threat in his manner that hardly became a scout; but then Toby had been a boy long before this scout movement was dreamed of, and the natural instinct is very hard to repress. "Hey, do we drop our wheels, and make a spurt, so as to be in at the finish?" demanded Nat. "You can, if you want to," replied his mate; "but something tells me a machine may come in handy yet, even if it is an old huckleberry makeshift like mine." "Gee, yes! I didn't think of that," Nat muttered, still clinging to his motorcycle. "The hobo might strike the road again, you mean?" "Yep, that's what, Nat." "And go skeetering off on Elmer's wheel?" "Just what I meant," replied Toby. "He's been making a sorter curve all along, like he wanted to strike the road; I noticed that, Nat." "So did I. Don't like the job of pushing that machine through the scrub any too much, I reckon," Nat remarked, panting from his own exertions. "And say, do you blame him?" Toby asked. "Listen!" and Nat cocked his head as though he could hear better in that position. "What was it? Did you catch a shout for help? Perhaps Elmer's caught up with him, Nat!" "I thought I heard somebody call out, or laugh," Nat began, when he was interrupted by a shout. "Toby--Nat, hurry along with your wheels!" "That's Elmer!" gasped Toby, as he tried to add a little more speed to his forward progress. "Perhaps he's got him under his knee, and is holding him for us," suggested Nat. "That's silly," returned the other, immediately. "It won't hold water, Nat. Whatever would he tell us to bring our machines, if he had the hobo? Tell you what, I reckon he's made off along the road with Elmer's motorcycle, that's a fact!" "And he wants one of ours to chase him with! Oh, I wish I could fly right now, so's to hurry!" Nat cried. "A fine mess _you'd_ make of it, if even a fellow like me, that's up to snuff, don't seem able to get it down pat," sneered Toby. "I see Elmer, and he's waving his hand to us like fun!" exclaimed Nat, without appearing to take any notice of the slur cast upon his abilities in the line of aviation. Elmer came bounding toward them just then, as though meaning to lend all the assistance in his power toward getting the machine he fancied, if there was any choice in the matter, to the road near by. He clutched hold of Toby's motorcycle, possibly believing that its recent regeneration might prove fairly lasting. So they came upon the edge of the road again, after making all that half circle through the woods and scrub.