"Don't say you didn't hear me?" roared the chauffeur. "I sounded my horn fifty times." "Sure, I heard a horn," admitted Billers. "But," he added triumphantly, "I didn't see no car." "Are you blind?" asked Riley. "There's the car." Lem Billers looked behind. At sight of the sedan, his jaw dropped. "Well, I'll be hanged!" he declared sadly. "It must be my eyes is goin' back on me. Not my ears. I looked behind three times and I couldn't see no car." "Don't believe him, officer," said the chauffeur. "He didn't even turn around." "I did so!" contended Mr. Billers. "Then why didn't you let me pass?" "You didn't have no car. I heard a horn but I didn't see no car." Thereupon the argument grew fast and furious. Constable Riley was vastly puzzled. He didn't know what to make of it. Both the chauffeur and Lem Billers appeared to be telling the truth, yet there was something wrong somewhere. He took it all down in a notebook, while Mr. Billers and the chauffeur grew angrier and angrier at each other until finally they were on the point of settling the matter with their fists. In the meantime there was a steadily lengthening line of cars and wagons blocking the street, unable to get past because of the hay wagon and the sedan. A constant chorus of automobile horns sounded. Angry drivers roared at the officer to clear the road. Constable Riley threw up his hands in disgust. "Get on your way, both of you," he commanded. "I can't stand here arguin' all afternoon." And while Lem Billers, wondering whether his eyes or his ears had deceived him, drew his horses to the side of the road and muttered strong threats of vengeance against the chauffeur, the traffic tangle gradually abated. When he finally resumed his journey, the Hardy boys could see Chet Morton lying limply in the back of the wagon with tears of laughter running down his face. As for Frank and Joe, they laughed all the way home and during supper that evening their spasmodic outbursts of chuckles puzzled their parents extremely. CHAPTER VI TIRE TRACKS Next day was Saturday, and immediately after breakfast the Hardy boys asked their mother to make up a lunch for them, as they intended to spend the day in the woods with a number of their school chums. Mrs. Hardy quickly made up a generous package of sandwiches, not forgetting to slip in several big slices of the boys' favorite cake, and the lads started out in the bright morning sunshine, with the whole holiday before them. They met the other boys, half a dozen in all, on the road at the outskirts of the town and so, whistling and chattering and telling jokes, the group trudged along the dusty highway. Once in a while they would explore along the fences for berry bushes, and occasionally a friendly scuffle would start, to end with both laughing contestants covered with dust.