"Quiet," he whispered; "I think we have treed our buggy friends."
"The buggy is out there on the road," I answered.
"It was, but that whistle will bring it in here. There stands the big man just at the other end of the gallery. He cannot see us; he is looking the other way. Follow me across into the shrubbery and we will get up near him. I'm bound to hear what devilment they are up to."
With that he sprang lightly across. I followed; and, crouching noiselessly along the soft grass, we stole through the low trees and bushes until nearly opposite the southern end of the gallery. Almost at the same instant the buggy came driving up the turn, and a voice uttered an impatient "Whoa!"
"What have you seen?" queried the party in the buggy in a low, agitated voice,—a voice I knew I had heard before, and instinctively reached forth my hand and placed it on my companion's arm.
"Seen! Not a d—d thing. Your blue-bellied skunk has been too smart for you, Cap. He not only hasn't come himself, but he's got his friends out here on your track."
"He has come, I tell you," answered the first speaker. "You know yourself they were asking for him at Gaston's, and that fellow at the bridge told you he saw him ride across."
"Then where'd he go to?" said the other, sulkily and savagely. "No man passed Gaston's on horseback, I can swear to that; and if he came at all as far as the bridge, why didn't he come the rest of the way? Where did he go? How did he get back? Are you sure you wrote plain directions?"
"Plain! Of course I did. I wrote turn towards the lake, to the south, after crossing the bridge, and he'd find me; and so he would, d—n him!" added the younger man between his teeth. His voice was growing more and more familiar to me every moment in its sulky, peevish tones.
"But you said he was a stranger here. How was he to know where the lake lay?"