"How could he help seeing me?" the boy asked himself, as the man joined Bud Heyland, and the two turned off and moved in the direction of the highway.
Some distance away Bud Heyland and Sutton stopped and talked together in such low tones that Fred Sheldon could only hear the murmur of their voices, as he did when he first learned of their presence beside the road.
But it is, perhaps, needless to say that he was content to let them hold their conference in peace, without any effort on his part to overhear any more of it. He was only too glad to let them alone, and to indulge a hope that they would be equally considerate toward him.
Bud would have continued the search much longer and with a strong probability of success had not Sutton persuaded him that it was only a waste of time to do so. Accordingly they resumed their walk, with many expressions of impatience over their failure to capture the individual who dared to discover their secrets in such an underhanded way.
"He looked to me like a very small man," said Bud, as he walked slowly along, dusting the dirt from his clothing and rubbing the many bruised portions of his body.
"Of course he was," replied Sutton, "or he wouldn't have gone into that kind of business."
"I don't mean that; he seemed like a short man."
"Yes, so he was, but there are plenty of full-grown men in this world who are no taller than he."
"It's too bad, I broke my pipe all to pieces when I fell over the fence, and jammed the stem half way down my throat."