“Say, Bug Eye, you didn’t happen to notice whether one of those men who robbed you had on a checkered shirt, did you?” Teddy called out as he rode along. “Checkered shirt? Well, now that you mention it, I do remember just that! Long, stringy sort of ranger, with a peaked hat? Yep! Why did you ask that, Teddy?” “Tell you later, Bug Eye,” the boy answered. He felt that this was no time for explanations, when they were riding hard to catch the man who had taken Flash. Teddy was sorry the flivver had been stolen. “But,” he said to himself, “what’s a flivver compared to Flash?” Jim Casey, who was riding slightly in the rear, suddenly gave a yell. “Here’s somethin’ like a box at the side of the road!” he called. Bug Eye looked to where Jim was pointing, and then jumped off his pony. He ran toward the object, and, bending over, he examined it carefully. “We’re on the right trail, boys!” he exclaimed. “This here is the box Mrs. Ball gave me fer yore sister, Teddy. But it’s empty, now. Whatever was in it, the thieves took. Well, that’s some help! Roy, we ought to meet up with yore dad soon, unless he made a powerful wide circle.” Remounting again, Bug Eye and the rest resumed their chase. Ahead of them they spied three horsemen. “There’s dad now!” Roy cried, forcing his mount onward. “Yay, Dad! Find anything?” “Not yet! But we’ve not finished! How’d you make out?” “We got a clue, boss!” Jim Casey answered. “I spotted a box in the road an’ Bug Eye says it was in the flivver with him. So the thieves must have come this way.” Roy spurred his horse close to his father’s. “Another thing, Dad,” the boy remarked in a low voice. “Bug Eye said that one of the hold-up men had on a checkered shirt!” “You don’t say!” Mr. Manley appeared startled. “But of course we have to remember that there’s probably more than one checkered shirt around here, though I don’t recall ever seein’ one as loud as the one we noticed at Eagles. Roy, that’s right interestin’ news!” “Do we go on, boss?” Nick Looker asked. “We sure do!” the ranch owner answered forcibly. “We’ll trail that flivver till we get it, by jinks!” Once more the riders started off. The night was growing misty now, and the tracks were harder to see, so that the punchers had to proceed more slowly. Once Pop Burns thought he saw the car at one side, but it proved to be only a large boulder. After riding some five or six miles, Mr. Manley called to his party to halt. “There’s something fishy about this,” the cattle owner declared. “These tracks don’t seems to get any place! An’ by the way, there’s more than one car in this part of the country, though I can’t think why any one would take this trail unless they wanted to get away in a hurry. Let’s spread out, and cover more ground. Even if we do find the flivver, it won’t help us much. It’s a cinch the thieves aren’t going to hang around it, once it stops; an’ it can’t go on forever. How much gas did it have in the tank, Bug Eye?”