"
There was a sound from the front seat that sounded suspiciously like a
chuckle, but not being quite sure, the girls could do nothing whatever
about it.
"But look--he's getting away from us!" wailed Amy suddenly, and once more
all their attention was focused on the chase.
And, quite suddenly, while they watched, the motorcyclist disappeared from
view as if the earth had opened and swallowed him up.
A few seconds later, with a grinding of brakes, the car stopped at the
spot where he had disappeared, and the girls looked at one another
despairingly.
The path that he had taken seemed no more than a broad foot path through
the woods, so narrow that no machine could follow him, and of course there
was no chance of catching him on foot.
"He got away from us!" cried Grace, voicing a rather self-evident fact.
"I'm afraid so, miss," said the man, and he seemed so genuinely
disappointed that they looked at him gratefully. "The man must be rather
much of a dare-devil, your criminal," he added, eyeing the bumpy path
thoughtfully. "An ordinary rider wouldn't be able to go two yards along
that path without coming to grief."
"Do you know where this path leads to?" asked Betty, struck with a sudden
inspiration. "If there's another road we might circle round and head him
off."
"Sorry, miss," he said, "but the road that path leads to is nothing but a
wagon road, and we'd have to go several miles before we'd cross it.
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