Jack jammed down the emergency brakes, which were pneumatic and
operated from the pressure tank, with a suddenness that sent Dick
Donovan almost catapulting out of the tonneau.

"Jumping jiggers of Joppa!" he shouted, for he had not yet seen the
obstacle in the road, "what's happened? Are we bust up?"

"No, but if I hadn't stopped when I did we'd have bust someone else
up," declared Jack. "Look there!"

"Can you beat it?" exclaimed Tom.

As the brakes brought the car to a stop within a foot of his stout,
rotund figure, the little man in the center of the road looked up with
a sort of mild surprise through a pair of astonishingly thick-lensed
eyeglasses secured to his ears by a thick, black ribbon. He wore a
broad-brimmed black hat and wrinkled, baggy clothes of bar-cloth, and
a huge pair of square-toed boots that looked as if their tips had been
chopped off with an ax.

Over his shoulder was slung a canvas bag which appeared to be heavy
and bulged as if several irregularly shaped, solid substances were
inside of it. The spot where this odd encounter took place was some
distance from any town, but a bicycle leaning against a tree at the
roadside showed how the little man had got there.

"Say, would you mind letting us get by?" asked Jack.

The little man raised a hand protestingly.