Gus Montrose jeered.
“Try and get through there!” he said.
Puzzled, the driver got out and advanced toward the heavy thickets. It seemed impossible to go any farther, and yet the tire marks of other cars were visible right up to the undergrowth. He gave one of the trees a kick, and it fell back. The secret was revealed. A cunningly contrived platform held the trees in place, and it swung back, in the manner of a gate. When a car passed through, it was drawn shut again and gave the appearance of an unbroken mass of foliage.
This explained why the secret road had never been discovered and why the thieves were able to drive their cars out through the gully without great risk of detection. The loose trees formed a perfect screen.
At last the Shore Road was in sight. The foremost car lumbered up onto the highway. In its headlights a strange group stood revealed.
There, in front of a fine sedan, stood Mr. Dodd, rifle in hand, confronting the remaining auto thief. With him were Jack Dodd and the officer who had been despatched to their assistance.
The thief, presumably the man called Dan, was sitting disconsolately on the bumper of the car, handcuffs about his wrists.
“We got him!” shouted Jack, in excitement, as the cars lumbered out of the bush. “Held him up just as he came out onto the road.”
“Fine work!” applauded the sergeant, scrambling out. “This just about cleans up the gang—all except Clancy.”
Dan looked up sharply.
“How do you know about Clancy?”
“Never mind. We know all about him. And he’ll be behind the bars with the rest of you before long, if I’m not mistaken.”
The trooper who had been in charge of the roundup came up at this juncture.
“Another, eh?” he said cheerfully. “Well, the little procession is growing. Better join the parade, boys.”
He assigned one of the men to replace Dan at the wheel of the stolen car.
“We’ll let you be a passenger, for a change,” he said, motioning the thief to the back seat. “Guest of honor.”
From Dan’s expression, as he took his seat, he did not appreciate the compliment.
“You’d better come to town with us for the finish,” called Frank to the Dodds.
“I wouldn’t miss it for a farm,” Jack said, as he scrambled into the roadster with them.
So, with police, auto thieves, troopers, the Dodds and the Hardy boys duly seated in the various cars, the procession started for Bayport. One of the officers drove back the police car, with the motorcycles securely lashed in place on the running boards, and one piled in the back seat.
In the Hardy boys’ roadster, jubilation prevailed. Jack Dodd was loud in his praises of the work the lads had done, and beneath it all was the undercurrent of intense relief because he knew the capture of the gang would clear himself and his father from suspicion.
“That’s the best part of it, for us,” said Joe Hardy, when their chum mentioned this.
XXIII
The Mystery Solved
The capture and subsequent trial of the automobile thieves provided Bayport with one of its biggest sensations in many a day. Although some of the gang stubbornly insisted on their innocence, the evidence against them was so complete that the state had no trouble in securing prosecutions against them all, and they were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment in the state penitentiary.
The man, Clancy, was arrested in Atlantic City and was convicted with the rest of the gang, on charges of receiving and disposing of stolen property. The Bayport police notified Atlantic City detectives, and Clancy’s arrest was accomplished within an hour after the other members of the gang were lodged in the cells.
Gus Montrose was questioned by detectives shortly after the triumphant procession reached the city. This was done at the request of Mr. Dodd, who was anxious that he and Jack should be cleared of all suspicion in connection with the thefts as quickly as possible.
Montrose saw that the game was up. He admitted that his former employer knew nothing of the stolen cars.
“It was while I was working for Mr. Dodd that I found the caves in the bluffs,” he confessed. “I used to go down to the beach a lot to fish, and one day I found the opening into the tunnel and explored the big cave. I thought at the time that it would be a good place to hide stolen goods. Then one day I met Sam. He had just been released from the pen and we got to talking together and he said he thought there would be good money to be picked up stealin’ cars.”
“Where did you pick up the rest of the crowd?”
“Sam’s friends, mostly. When I told Sam about the caves in the bluffs, he said it was just what we needed and he asked me if there was any roads in. I said there wasn’t, but we could make roads in and out through the gullies, and cover ’em up. Then I told him about the old private road through to the back townships. He come with me and we looked the place over and he said it was just right. He wrote to some of his friends and they come on here and we started to work.”
“That was when you quit your job at the Dodd place?”
“I didn’t want to quit, for I figgered people wouldn’t be so likely to think I was mixed up with the car stealin’ if I kept on workin’, but it took up so much of my time that Mr. Dodd let me go.”
“Who did the actual car stealing?”
“The rest of the fellows. My job was to keep my eyes open for good chances. People would see me goin’ along the Shore Road and think nothin’ of it, but if any of the other boys went out, somebody might see ’em and think it queer, because they was strangers. Mostly I stayed down on the beach fishin’,
