“It won’t take us long,” said Bob, who had been thinking hard as they tramped along. “We’ll just stop in and tell them what we’ve heard and then go on. I don’t suppose there is anything that we can do.”
“I guess Mr. Salper will do all that’s necessary when he finds his money threatened,” said Joe significantly.
“I reckon he’s had a hunch that something of this kind has been going on for a long time—in fact, he as much as told us so,” said Bob. “But I guess these rascals were so clever he couldn’t put his finger on them.”
“I wonder what kind of deal they were talking about,” mused Herb.
“It was a crooked one, anyway,” said Bob, decidedly. “All you had to do was to look at them to know that.”
The little shack in the woods was a long way from the Salper place, and so, in spite of their hurry, the boys did not reach it until just on the edge of dark.
The entire family was gathered in the living room of the Salper cottage, even Mr. Salper himself, and the boys threw their bomb right into the midst of them.
Mr. Salper had seemed inclined, as he usually did, to draw apart by himself, but at the very beginning of the boys’ story, he evinced an almost fierce interest.
He questioned them minutely while the girls and Mrs. Salper listened wonderingly.
“You said the name of one of the men was Mohun?” he asked, throwing away the cigar he had been smoking and bending earnestly toward Bob. “What did he look like?”