“Somebody’s coming!” he whispered. “Maybe it’s Porton.”
Dave did not answer. At the end of the semi-dark hallway there was a closet which in years gone by had been used for the storage of guns and clothing. Into this closet the two youths went, closing the door carefully after them.
“It’s Porton all right enough,” whispered Dave, who a moment later was crouching low and looking through a large keyhole devoid of a key. “There he goes into the room where the two men are.”
“Then those two men must be in with him,” returned the senator’s son. “Say, Dave, this is certainly getting interesting!”
“It’s going to make our job a pretty hard one,” answered our hero. “If Ward Porton was alone we might be able to capture him. But I don’t see 276 how we are going to do it with Jarvey and that man named Brown present.”
“Maybe if we offer Jarvey and Brown a large reward they will help us make Porton a prisoner,” suggested Roger. “More than likely Jarvey is on his uppers and will do anything to get a little cash.”
The two youths came out into the semi-dark hallway once more, and on tiptoes crept toward the door of the room occupied by Ward Porton and the two men.
“I went all around the buildings, and looked up and down the roadway, but I couldn’t see anything of them,” the former moving-picture actor was saying. “I guess they got cold feet when they saw those soldiers. Say, those greasers certainly were a fierce-looking bunch!”
“I don’t believe they were any of General Bilassa’s army,” returned William Jarvey. “They were probably some detachment out for whatever they could lay their hands on,” and he chuckled coarsely. Evidently he considered that such guerrilla warfare under certain circumstances was perfectly justifiable.
Following this there was some talk which neither of those outside the door could catch. Then came a rather loud exclamation from Ward Porton which startled our friends more than anything else that could have been said.