He met no one, saw no one and at length reached the old hollow tree where he had met the strange man that afternoon.
He had his pocket flashlight with him and now, as he reached the tree he turned a brilliant glare into the hollow, taking care that it went nowhere else.
There was something at the bottom of the opening and he reached in his hand and brought it out.
It was a folded bit of coarse paper tied around a stone and, unfolding it, he read as follows:
“Dear Bill: Coast is clear. Think we can do the crack to-night.”
“Very good!” he said to himself as he put the paper in his pocket, shut off the light and hurried away. “I don’t know if this was overlooked or if it has just been put here but I am glad I have secured it.”
He mixed in with the boys and left them to go to his room in one of the cottages where he was now quartered only a short time before the hour of retiring.
When ten o’clock struck he waited about ten minutes and, looking out of the window to assure himself that all was dark, he opened the sash and flashed his light in the direction of the river, keeping the light on until an answering flash in the distance told him that his own signal had been seen.
Then he sent a number of long and short flashes and waited a few moments until he saw a steady flash of a few seconds in the direction where he had seen the first.
“All right, he is ready,” he said to himself and then sent a number of flashes as before, holding the light for a longer or shorter period as required to indicate dots and dashes in the Morse code of telegraphy.