"Oh! Oh!" cried Bobby with dancing eyes. "Then my rhyme is a true bill?"

"Aw, Lance would have to give it away!" growled Chet.

"Boys are as clannish as they can be!" said Jess severely. "We are just as
much interested as you are, Chet. What made Billy believe Pretty Sweet ran
the man down?"

"Oh, well," sighed Chet, "we might as well give in to you girls, I
suppose."

"Besides," laughed his sister, "the pies are almost done, and both you and
Lance will want to sample them."

"Go on. Tell 'em, Chet," said Lance.

"Why, Billy had been riding that day in the Sweets' car. You know Purt is
too lazy to breathe sometimes, and he wouldn't get out his chains and put
'em on. Billy knew that the chains were not on at dinner time that evening,
for he passed the Sweet place and saw the car standing outside the garage
with the radiator blanketed.

"Well, the only thing we were sure of about the car that ran that man
down--the Alaskan miner, you know--was that the rear wheels had no chains
on them, and that it was a Perriton car like Purt's."

"Yes, it was a Perriton," said his sister.

"So we fellows hiked up there to Sweets'. Purt was out with the car. He