Nettled by these words, and being tired, cross and likewise suspicious himself, Mr. Gouger decided to shake the marshal into a better humor by going over a very rough place at the fastest rate the little car could muster. Possibly he would have succeeded; at any rate Mr. Wellock was gripping his seat with both hands to hold on, when suddenly, whizz! The car skidded into a rut, Mr. Gouger for a moment lost control, and in another instant the little machine leaped over the low bank into a stagnant pool of thick, dirty water and almost bottomless mud. "Now see what you done!" gasped Mr. Wellock, sputtering and spitting, as he succeeded in dragging himself up the bank. He had gone out of his seat and into the mud and water like a log rolled off a flat car. "Who in thunder made me do it? Nobody's fault but your own! I knew 'twasn't safe, but by _gum_! you kept squealin' for more speed! Now see what _you_ done," hotly returned Eli, who had also taken into his mouth rather more of the stagnant water than he seemed to relish. Head foremost he had pitched out over the steering wheel as the machine went down. What followed when the two had taken inventory and found themselves not seriously damaged, though in a truly sorry plight, has in substance been told. Both men were still wet from head to foot and literally covered with the thick, oozy mud when the Auto Boys reached them. The first task was to rescue the car. This was accomplished by means of ropes hitched to the Thirty though the runabout had sunk almost out of sight. Beside the rekindled campfire on the ridge, a half-mile away, the two unhappy officers bathed as best they could and dried their clothes. The dawn of the early summer morning was breaking now, and Billy Worth bestirred himself to prepare breakfast. The other boys began repacking the car which had been quickly unloaded, preparatory to answering the calls for help. The identity of the lads Mr. Wellock and Mr. Gouger had learned to their entire satisfaction. Yet it was with mixed feelings of disappointment and relief that they became convinced of their folly in supposing the four young men to be thieves and runaways. For it _was_ a disappointment that for all their trouble they had received nothing but a ducking in a swamp; and it _was_ something of a relief not to feel compelled to place under arrest those who had been of such timely service. So, as they scraped the thickest of the mud from their clothing, the crestfallen officers agreed to say nothing to the boys to indicate that the lads themselves were, in fact, the suspected car thieves of whom, they had already told, they were in pursuit. Unfortunately their self-importance had caused them to let a large part of Sagersgrove know the object of their journey as they set out. Their return home, in consequence, was followed by a very different kind of story in the newspapers than they had pictured would be the case.