"I guess we can keep up with you," Bart replied, and they started off.
CHAPTER X
MR. HARDMAN'S QUEER ACT
It was about five miles from the hotel to where the corduroy road began to wend a tortuous way through the big woods back of the town of Darewell. It was the same road over which the chums had traveled the time they went camping just before the previous Thanksgiving, during which excursion they had shot considerable game.
They walked out through the suburbs of the town, and soon were in the open country. Then came a stretch of woodland, and, after a mile of this, the chums turned aside into a denser forest.
"Here's the corduroy road," said Bart, pointing to where the log highway began.
"Ah, indeed," remarked Mr. Hardman. "Quite interesting. Made of little logs laid side by side. To prevent wagons from sinking down into the mud, I suppose?"
"It isn't used much nowadays," volunteered Fenn. "It was built by the loggers when they were cutting some timber, but that was several years ago."
"Where does it lead to?"
"Right into the middle of the woods, and then it stops," replied Bart, thinking of the winter day they had last traveled over the road, and recalling what events had followed the discovery of the Perry family, suffering in the forest hut.
"We'll take a walk along it," Mr. Hardman went on. "It seems to be just the sort of locality I'm looking for. Quite lonesome enough to suit me."