“Somebody else has been here, that’s sure,” declared Dick. “They’re taking a lot of trouble to frighten a poor inoffensive darky half to death!” he continued angrily. “A pretty cheap joke, I call it!”
“Maybe it’s not altogether a joke,” suggested Ned. “I mean there may be something else than a joke behind all this. Nobody ever bothered Sam before, but about as soon as it becomes known that he has a lease on the Coleson house there comes that letter, then that light out at the house and now this funny business here. All these happenings look like the work of the same hand. What’s the answer?”
“Somebody is trying to scare Sam into quitting his lease,” growled Dick. “It’s lucky for us that we blocked that game!”
“But who can it be, and why this sudden interest in the place just as we get started there?” complained Tommy Beals.
“Perhaps the answer might be found out at the Coleson house,” suggested Ned. “Are you two fellows game to go out there with me and scout around a bit?”
“How can we get out there?” asked Dick. “Dave’s gone away somewhere with the flivver and won’t be back till tonight.”
“Let’s take the Cleveland bus and get ’em to drop us at Cedar Hollow. It’s only a couple of miles through the woods from there,” urged Ned.
This plan was agreed upon, and shortly afterwards the three scouts were threading the thick undergrowth between Cedar Hollow and the lake.
“Here’s luck!” cried Dick, as they emerged from a tangle of underbrush into what had evidently once been a wood-road. “This old track seems to be heading about in the right direction. Let’s follow it.”
“Somebody else has been doing the same thing,” observed Ned, pointing to several broken twigs and torn leaves on the thick bushes lining the road. “There’s been a car, or maybe a light truck through here quite recently,” he continued, after a closer examination of the ground.