"Shall we all go?" asked Bert. "Won't it look sort of queer for three of us to be hanging around the doctor's house?"
"It will," assented Jack, "and, therefore, we won't all hang out in the same place. I'll get under the big office window; Bert, you can take the window on the other side, and George will guard the front door."
"Guard the front door? For what?"
"Well, just sort of drape yourself around it," suggested Jack, who had assumed the direction of matters. "Maybe you can overhear something as Sam and Appleby come out. I don't just like this sort of thing," he added, "but the end justifies the means, I think."
Tom nodded gravely. The stain against his name had affected him more than he cared to admit. The three lads went out and Tom sat down in moody silence to await their return. They were not long away, and came back together, rather silent.
"Well?" asked Tom questioningly, as his chums entered.
"Nothing much," answered Jack in despondent tones. "We were almost too late, but I did manage to overhear something. Sam and Appleby came out a short time after we got there. It seems that the farmer caught Sam sneaking around his barn, and as he's been suspicious, and on the watch ever since the poisoning of his horses, he rushed out in a hurry and collared him."
"What explanation did Sam make?" asked Tom.
"All I could hear was that it was a mistake, and that he wandered off the road in the darkness."
"The same as we did when we got in the corn," said Tom. "So that's all there was to it?"