With furious impatience but still vainly, they hustled from one end of the city to another. Repeatedly they drove past Dr. Way's residence, as if to make sure, time after time, that none of the four friends was about the green and yellow shed. All they could learn was that the chums had driven away, their car laden as if they meant to go to the Pacific Coast, at least, the preceding afternoon. "I _thought_ it was funny that only Way and Jones went to the ball game. And they did it just for a blind, too!" said Pickton grimly. "You thought nothing of the kind!" growled Gaines. "Least if you did, it's a fine time to be telling it!" "Well, I guess they haven't seen the last of us yet, anyway, eh?" Pick answered in that way in which he so often knuckled to Soapy's humor, leading that young gentleman on to do the thing he himself most wished to do. "I should rather _guess_ they hadn't," Gaines responded, as if the idea of pursuit were wholly his own,--"I'll show 'em a trick or two yet." "The first thing is to find out where they are; at least, which way they went," put in Perth, quietly. Gaines turned on him angrily. "What's that got to do with it? You leave that to me!" he said. And while it would appear that the information Fred mentioned was, under all the circumstances, quite essential and really did have quite a great deal to do with the case, that young gentleman made only a wry face in answer. Soapy did not see him. Quite possibly Perth did not intend that he should. In fruitless running from place to place the three boys spent the day. Repeatedly were they on the verge of falling out with one another completely. Only because Pickton bore Gaines' insolence in silence, or turned it aside by some flattering or cajoling remark, did these two get on at all in this time of trouble and disappointment,--the sort of time that really measures friendships and motives. Perth was content to have little to say, usually accepting the suggestions and remarks of the others without comment. He drove the car, for the most part, and as he liked it very much, earnestly hoped the proposed long trip following after the Auto Boys would not be abandoned. Wednesday came and the Trio, glum and despondent, talked a great deal, again came very near to serious quarreling, and achieved nothing. And now the objects of their chiefest interest and the cause of their chagrin were two days upon their way. But whither? "'Three stones piled on top of each other to mark the place,'" mused Pickton over and over again. "They _think_ they have something great in sight, but I'll bet they don't know exactly what, any more than we do. And they think they're so plagued smart! We've just _got_ to take some of the conceit out of 'em." "That's what!" Soapy Gaines asserted, but rather dubiously.