Frank felt more than curious to know what the men had in mind. As soon as the car came to a stand the lighter man, who had not been hurt in the accident, jumped rather clumsily from the tonneau. Frank noticed this with surprise, for up to now he had looked upon the other as rather agile. Could he have been injured after all, and was just beginning to feel the effect of his headlong plunge into the bushes? Judge of his utter amazement when he saw Bart at once seize hold of the nearby telegraph pole and begin to climb up with a series of sturdy kicks that apparently glued each foot in succession to the pole. Frank no longer wondered, for he knew that the man had been strapping a pair of lineman's climbing spurs to his legs when bending down in the tonneau of the stolen car! CHAPTER XVII A DESPERATE REMEDY "All right, Bart?" called out the man in the car, as the other seemed to have reached the cross-bars far up the pole, over the lower of which he threw a leg, after the confident manner of one accustomed to such antics. "Sure. It was dead easy," came floating down from above. "Then get to work, and make a clean job of it. Look here, boy, don't you be thinkin' of leavin' us in the lurch just now. I ain't fit to run this shebang, so we need you, and need you bad. I reckon you know what this is, don't you?" and the fellow showed something that glistened like steel in the mellow moonlight. Frank could not help feeling a little chill; still, he, was not given to showing the white feather easily. "Of course I do. It isn't the first time I've seen a revolver," he managed to say, with a nervous little laugh. "All right, then; don't get gay, and make me ugly, or something might happen. Hey! Bart, why don't you get busy?" raising his voice again. There was a sharp click, and a clear "tang," as of a strained wire snapping. Frank understood now what was doing. These men had fear of pursuit, and were cutting the telegraph wires in order to prevent direct communication between Columbia and Fayette! A second and a third metallic "pink" announced that the man up among the cross bars was indeed using his cutters with effect. At that rate he would have the entire sheaf of wires severed in another minute or so. The matter began to assume gigantic proportions to the boy, as he sat there in the car and listened. Certainly these men must have desperate need for delay in the pursuit, if they went to such extremes in order to accomplish it. And they seemed to have provided against such a contingency, too, which would indicate that they were now only carrying out a part of a well-laid plan.