“Come on over, you’ll have all the chance you want,” fired back Frank.
“That will do,” said the man coolly. “Perhaps Sandy was a little hasty, but what he said was true. He has been hired to watch this property, but I don’t believe he needs a gun. I did not tell him to use one.”
“I had to protect myself,” whined Sandy.
“Ho! Don’t worry! You’re too mean for us to bother with!” exclaimed Ned. “We’ll go,” he added.
“I wish you would,” the man replied, civilly enough. “I have no objection to your walking all around within a mile of here, but within that space the land is prescribed,” and he smiled in no unfriendly fashion. “I will bid you good day. Sandy, I guess you can come with me; they will go,” and the man moved back into the woods whence he had come, carrying Sandy’s rifle, and followed by that youth, who paused to shake his fist at the chums.
“Well, did you ever hear the beat of that?” asked Ned, as he and the others turned around and walked back. “So this is where Sandy is camping. I wonder what it all means?”
“It means there is something queer going on, and I’m going to see what it is,” declared Bart. “Come on, I’ll show them a trick.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Ned.
“We’ll go up on top of the hill. I know a place where we can look right down into this clearing and all around it. It’s from a tall tree I climbed once when I was after bird’s eggs.”
“But we can’t see so far,” objected Frank.