Joe noticed that the stranger cast frequent anxious glances toward the shore. Suddenly an expression of alarm crossed the man's face, and Joe saw that he was watching two figures who had appeared on the road and who were running along, waving their arms, evidently trying to attract attention. "Somebody signaling to us," he said to Frank. Frank looked up. The two men on the road were making frantic efforts to draw attention, as they waved their arms and leaped about like lunatics. "Friends of yours?" asked Frank of their passenger. The florid-faced man laughed. The laugh was meant to be carefree and hearty, but there was no disguising the note of uneasiness beneath it. "Yes--yes, they're friends of mine," he admitted. "I put one over on them that time." He chuckled nervously. "They're just beginning to realize that I've given them the slip." "What's the big idea?" "That's the time I fooled them." The stranger laughed loudly--too loudly, in fact. "You see, I'm going to be married. That's why I have to catch that train. I kept it a secret until this morning, but my friends got wind of it and thought they'd play a practical joke on me. I started out in plenty of time for the train, but they had fixed the engine of my car so it broke down and I had to come back to Barmet. They were trying to hold me back, and for a while I was beginning to think that they had got away with it. But I bested 'em. I fooled 'em that time." He laughed again, but still there was that note of insincerity in his mirth that had aroused the suspicions of the Hardy boys at first. They said nothing, and the stranger evidently thought his story had been believed, for he sat back in the boat with a complacent air. But Frank glanced again at the two men on the road. For practical jokers, they seemed to be making a tremendous fuss over their friend's escape. They were still waving their arms, evidently trying to signal to the boat to turn back. "There's something fishy about this," muttered Frank. "I don't know of any train leaving Bayport at this hour of the day." "Neither do I," his brother replied, in a low voice. "Those men on the shore seem mighty agitated over something or other. If it was a practical joke they'd just give up and go back to the village." "It's a pretty queer story. He seemed in an awful hurry to get away from Barmet." "I have a good mind to turn back. We may be getting ourselves into trouble." "He'll be as mad as hops if we do. Tell him we don't want his money, and take him back to Barmet." The more Frank considered the situation the more he felt that the wisest course would be to turn back to Barmet and wash his hands of the whole affair. The stranger's story about an approaching wedding might be true and it might not, but there was the fact of which he was certain, that there was no train leaving Bayport at that hour of the day. He turned to the passenger. "What time is your train leaving?" "About ten-thirty."