CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
TINKER MEETS HIS OLD NURSE Tinker let the car rip on, the while he considered what he should do.
He was excited, determined, he accepted readily enough the responsibility which had fallen upon him, but he was hardly happy.

He could see no hope of rescuing Dorothy and Elsie by himself, even if he caught the carriage; and since he reckoned that it would take his father two or three hours to turn the Riviera upside down, and extricate himself and Mr.Rainer from the extremely neat and effective trap into which they had fallen, he could look for no help from them till far into the night.

For a while he suffered from the sense that he had bitten off, or rather had had thrust into his mouth, more than he could chew.

Then of a sudden he saw that the really important thing, the dogging the kidnappers, was in his power, and he regained his cheerfulness.
He drove on the car at full speed for ten miles, and inquired of a peasant walking beside a cart loaded with bags of grain, if he had seen the carriage.

The peasant had seen it; he was vague as to how long ago, and how far away, but Tinker was sure that he had seen it.
Accordingly, he drove on the car at full speed again.