“That is evidence to me that the persons are the tramps we are after,” said Joe. “They were all drinking men.”
They had now to force their way through some short undergrowth and then cross a small stream, which in the summer time flowed into the lake. The stream was now a solid mass of ice.
“The house is just beyond yonder belt of trees,” said Joel Runnell, at last. “You had better stay here while I investigate.”
“Let us go a little closer and hide behind the nearest trees,” suggested Joe, and after a few words this was done.
With his gun over his shoulder Joel Runnell continued to advance until he was crossing the small clearing directly in front of the house, which was an old affair, a story and a half high, and containing but four rooms. The place looked to be closed and deserted.
“Hullo, Ike Slosson,” sang out the old hunter, when within fifty feet of the doorway. “Hullo, I say!”
Scarcely had he called out when there was a commotion in the house. He heard a shuffling of feet and some excited talking.
“Go away!” cried a high-pitched voice. “Go away, I say! I want no strangers around my house! Go away!”
CHAPTER XXVII
A PLAN FOR A CAPTURE
The words used were those which Ike Slosson had often uttered when folks of that neighborhood came around his house and he did not wish to entertain them. As Joel Runnell had said, the old man was very peculiar and at times he refused utterly to see even those he knew to be his friends. For strangers he had no welcome whatever. He knew old Runnell, however, and had treated him better than he had many another man. The hunter had once given him some fine rabbits and a partridge, and this had won Ike Slosson’s heart.