“Well, wouldn’t that get on your nerves?” Bart demanded of his chums, as they stopped for breath. “That’s the third time we’ve seen that man, and the second time he’s gotten away.”
“The next time he sees us he’ll know enough to run without waiting to take a second look at us,” observed Frank, grimly.
There was little use lingering longer in the woods, the chums decided, so, after a last look about, hoping for a sight of the mysterious stranger, they once more started for home. It was quite dark as they got out on the main highway, and to their great delight they saw approaching Jed Sneed, a teamster whom they knew. He readily consented to give them a ride back to town.
As they were nearing the centre of Darewell Ned exclaimed:
“By jove, I believe it’s snowing! I felt a flake on my face.”
“You’re right,” added Bart, a moment later. “It is snowing,” and a little flurry of white flakes confirmed his words.
“Yes, and I don’t like to see it,” remarked Jed, the teamster, as he cracked his whip, to hasten the pace of his horses.
“Why not?” asked Frank.
“Because it’s a sign we’re going to have a long, hard winter,” went on the man, who was rather an odd character, and a great believer in signs of various kinds. “It’s a sure sign of a hard winter when it snows just before the new moon,” Jed went on. “It’ll be new moon to-night, and we’re going to have quite a storm. Besides it’s down in my almanack that we’re going to have a bad spell of weather about now. I shouldn’t wonder but what we’d have quite a fall before morning,” and certainly it seemed so, for the flurry was increasing.