earnestly together. From the corner of his eye Bud caught Mert
tilting his head that way, and smiled to himself. Of course they
were talking about him! Any fool would know that much. Also they
were discussing the best means of getting rid of him, or of
saddling upon him the crime of stealing the car, or some other
angle at which he touched their problem.

Under cover of testing the rear wheel farthest from them, he
peeked into the tonneau and took a good look at the small
traveling bag they had kept on the seat between them all the way.
He wished he dared--But they were coming back, as if they
would not trust him too long alone with that bag. He bent again
to the tire, and when they climbed back into the curtained car he
was getting the pump tubing out to pump up that particular tire a
few pounds.

They did not pay much attention to him. They seemed preoccupied
and not too friendly with each other, Bud thought. Their general
air of gloom he could of course lay to the weather and the fact
that they had been traveling for about fourteen hours without any
rest; but there was something more than that in the atmosphere.
He thought they had disagreed, and that he was the subject of
their disagreement.

He screwed down the valve cap, coiled the pump tube and stowed
it away in the tool box, opened the gas tank, and looked in--
and right there he did something else; something that would have
spelled disaster if either of them had seen him do it. He spilled
a handful of little round white objects like marbles into the
tank before he screwed on the cap, and from his pocket he pulled