The guards were soon busy arranging the improvised tables, storing the food away in places where, in case the conspirators did manage to get in, they would have hard work to find it. Several were engaged in getting lanterns ready to illuminate the banquet table.
In fact they were all so much occupied that they did not notice three boys who had made a long circuit and brought up in the fields back of the Masterson barn. These three boys approached warily in the dusk of the evening.
"Is that the way they're going in?" asked one of the trio, as he saw the cow stable door.
"That's the way all but one of 'em is going in," was the answer. "There's going to be one vacant place at the dinner."
"Whose?" asked another of the trio, of the one who seemed to be the leader.
"Ned Wilding's."
"Are you sure he will come along alone so we can grab him?"
"Alone or not we'll get him. In fact we did think one time of making a rush through the cow stable door, after we found out about their traps at the other entrances. But that door is so narrow we couldn't get in quick enough but what they could stand us off. So we decided on this plan. We'll capture their presiding officer. It'll be like the play of Hamlet with Hamlet left out."
"What you going to do with him?"
"Denny Thorp has that in charge. I think he's going to carry him to some vacant house."