When he had stumbled on for another provoking half hour, with the darkness increasing, he came to another halt. A gleam of light, from a lamp or candle, reached him through the trees.
“I can inquire my way there, if nothing else,” he reflected, “and perhaps if it seems impossible for me to get home, I can find a bed for the night.”
Though still in a grumbling humor, he went on again with a decided feeling of relief, which changed to one of surprise and bewilderment when he was near enough the light to make out the manner of house from which it issued.
He had returned to Bob Thornton’s cabin!
CHAPTER V—HAMMOND’S PLOT
“I don’t see how I could have done that,” Bruce Browning growled, unpleasantly mystified. “I don’t suppose Nell will be very glad to see me, and probably she will think I came back purposely. But her ‘dad,’ as she calls him, will have to show me the way out of this place, or give me shelter.”
He walked toward the door, the soft carpet of grass and leaves muffling the sound of his footsteps. But at the corner of the cabin he was brought to as sudden a stop as if struck in the face.
“His name is Frank Merriwell, and I came down to tell you about him!”
These words, given in the voice of Ward Hammond, with the hissing emphasis of intense hate, reached Bruce Browning like a blow, and stayed his feet.
“He’s pretending to be a summer visitor, and is staying with a crowd at the cottages on the lakeside, but I overheard him talking last night, and caught on to the whole thing. He has been sent here by the government to hunt you down and drag you to jail.”