It would not have been the contents of the bottle, for he was much too far away.
However, as intoxicated colored men are seldom seen coming from the front door of the homes of white people in Virginia, it is possible that Old Ferret did smell something, metaphorically speaking. And that something gave him great encouragement to move without delay.
Nevertheless, he waited till the colored man had disappeared in the shed. Then he worked round till he was very near that shed. After a time he slipped up to the door and peered in.
The colored man was fast asleep on some straw in a corner, his bottle by his side. Standing in the shed were two horses. They were the very ones Cunningham had driven when, with Frank Merriwell at his side, he left the railway-station that day.
Old Ferret was well satisfied. Thus far he had not made one false step. Now he surveyed the house.
Still, as before, there were no signs of life about it. It was strangely silent and deserted.
The daring detective slipped up close under the shelter of its walls, and, with one ear pressed against the moss-grown shingles, he listened as a physician listens to the beating of a patient’s heart.
No sound from within.
Still thinking how that colored man who was sleeping in the shed had issued from the front door, which he had left ajar, Old Ferret was led to advance round the corner and approach the sagging steps.
He knew he was taking his life in his hand when he ventured into the retreat of a desperado like Cunningham, the outlaw, but what recked he of that! Had not his life been in peril thousands of times as he tracked down the minions of crime!