“You’re a pretty sensible kind of a grafter, after all,” said Patsy. “If you’re done chinning, we’ll move--out of the barn and toward the house.” Cricket started, and Patsy walked at his side, still keeping a grip on the comealongs. The hired man and the dog were just crawling out of the corn crib, and the farmer had mustered up courage to open the door of the house a couple of inches, as the detective passed by with his prisoner. A feeble plot darted through Cricket’s mind. “I say,” he shouted, “this man is a highway robber, and he chased me here. Go for him, will you? Help me get away from him!” “Yeou be derned,” drawled the farmer. “A feller that ’u’d scare honest folks like you did ought tew be robbed.” “Got anything else you want to tell ’em?” queried Patsy. Cricket gave a black scowl, and turned away. “Then it’s us back to the auto,” went on the detective, and marched his prisoner back through the woods to the road. The two machines were standing side by side, as they had been left, and there was no one around or in them. “It looks as though I’d make a record for bringing in the first man,” remarked Patsy. “Hello! What’s that?” A thump of swiftly falling hoofs reached him, and a team and a lumber wagon came slashing into view around a wooded bend. The horses attached to the wagon were more than laying out. The lines were dragging on the ground, there was no one on the bounding seat, and the awkward vehicle leaped and buck-jumped like a thing of life. In the rear of the wagon box were two men, struggling with each other for the mastery. One of the men was Chick, and the other was Spark. CHAPTER XXVI. HOW CHICK GOT HIS MAN. Spark was not so good a runner as Cricket, and Chick would have made a capture much quicker than Patsy had done, had his man not doubled back to the road, and, fortunately for him, encountered a young woman in a gingham dress and sunbonnet, driving home from town. “Stop!” cried Spark. “Take me in--I want to ride with you!” “Not much you don’t!” returned the young woman, with a toss of her head. “I can pick my own comp’ny, thanks!” “Will you stop?” Spark displayed a revolver. That was too much for the girl. With a scream, she let go the lines and dropped over the wagon wheel to the opposite side of the road. As she fell out, Spark jumped in. “Go it, you whelps!” roared the robber, grabbing up the whip and lashing the horses right and left. The lines were on the ground, but Spark did not care for that. The faster the horses ran away, the better he would be suited. Anything to get him out of the vicinity of Chick. Chick, however, was not to be shaken off so easily. He reached the road at the precise moment Spark began lashing the team, and, by some quick work, succeeded in grabbing the end gate of the wagon as it flew past. In a twinkling Chick was jerked off his feet and flung in the air, but he did not release his hold. His muscular arms alone dragged him into the wagon box.