fore him a small clearing. It was a part of the grove in which he had never been, so he ploughed on through the bushes until he found himself in a clearing that appeared to be part of an abandoned roadway.
It was in a low-lying part of the grove and the ground was wet. At one point it was muddy, and in this mud Joe saw something that aroused his curiosity.
"Tire tracks, eh! There's been an automobile in here," he muttered to himself. "I wonder how on earth a car could get this far into the woods!"
Then he remembered his father's remarks on the value of developing his powers of observation, so he went over closer and examined the marks in the mud.
"That's a strange tread," he thought. "I've never seen a tire mark quite like that before."
He gazed at it until he was sure that if he ever saw a similar auto tread again he would recognize it.
"That just goes to prove that dad was right," said Joe. "Probably I've seen auto tires like that often, but I've never noticed the markings, and now that I do notice one in particular it seems strange to me. But I wonder what an automobile was doing in here and how it came to get here in the first place!"
However, he gave the matter little further
