"We might as well hold up here a little bit, so as to let that crowd pass on," suggested George. "I never did take any stock in Connie Mallon anyway. He's got a pretty bad name down around our way. My father says he'll land in the penitentiary before he's two years older, except he reforms, and I'd never believe he'd change his ways."
"Oh! Elmer, I wonder now, could they know about those splendid nuts, and mean to skin the trees ahead of us?" exclaimed Toby, as though nearly overwhelmed by a staggering thought.
"You've some reason for saying that, Toby?" Elmer told him.
"Why, don't you know, it flashed over me just like a stroke of lightning," was what Toby went on to say, excitedly, a troubled look on his face. "You remember that when I was talking to you over the telephone, Elmer, and telling you about wanting to get the boys to come up here with me Saturday, I said several times somebody was rubbering, and once even told 'em to get off the wire, which they did, only to come on again."
"Yes, I do remember something like that," admitted the other scout.
"Well, our telephone is on a four-party line, and one of the other three houses is Jackson's down the street. Phil Jackson is one of the cronies of Connie Mallon, and he's sitting there in that wagon right now."
"Then you think he must have heard all you were telling me that man said about the immense crop of nuts up here at the Cartaret place, and has put the others wise to it?" Elmer asked.
"I wouldn't put it past Phil a minute!" Toby declared, with an expression of pain, "and now it looks like we mightn't get what we came after, unless we fight for it."
"I knew it!" muttered George; "call me a doubter all you want, but let me tell you things ain't always what they seem. There's a string tied to nearly everything you think you're going to get so easy. Oh! I know what I'm talking about, and for one I'm not surprised at anything happening."
"Don't throw up the sponge so easy, George," Elmer told him. "We may have our troubles, but scouts are supposed to be wide-awake enough to know how to overcome any kind of difficulties that happen along. As Sheridan said at the battle of Cedar Creek, we'll have those camps back, or the nuts in our case, or know the reason why."