“What do you make of it? Is it a warning or just an attempt to scare us?” asked Tommy Beals.
“Either—or both, I’d say,” interposed Dick. “Anyhow, it’s very evident that we’re being urged to vacate. The question is, are we going to quit?”
“Let’s get the boys together and talk it over,” replied Ned. “Right now we’d best be making tracks to catch the next bus at Cedar Hollow.”
CHAPTER XIII
THE NIGHT WATCH
A group of excited boys gathered in Dave Wilbur’s garage that afternoon and listened to the astonishing story which Ned Blake and his fellow sleuths had to tell.
“So there is somebody else besides us who is interested in the Coleson house!” exclaimed Charlie Rogers.
“There seems to be no question about that,” agreed Ned, “and what is more, they evidently want the whole place to themselves.”
“But I can’t see why anybody should want to drive us out,” complained Tommy Beals in an injured tone. “We won’t horn in on their business—whatever that may be—if they’ll just lay off us!”
Ned shook his head. “I’m afraid we won’t be able to get that idea across, Fatty. There’s something going on out there that we don’t understand; something that somebody is afraid we’ll get wise to. That letter to Sam and the ‘ghost’ he saw at his window were attempts to scare him away from the place. This paper nailed to the door is the next step and is meant for us. They succeeded in frightening Sam away; now the question is, are we going to quit?”
“Not on your life!” yelped Dick Somers, whose wrath had been steadily rising during this discussion. “We’ve put a lot of money and hard work into this scheme of ours and I say stick it out!”