"Ask anyone in the village."
"What'd we do if we found it?" gasped Clive. "I know—buy a real car."
"Rather!" echoed Hugh.
To which the careful Bert made the rejoinder: "Don't count your chickens before they're hatched. Still, if the tale's true, and I believe it, why shouldn't we find the stuff? Clive'd buy back the place and kick the Rawlings out. That'd be good, better than a car by a long way."
By this time the trio were on the road astride their bicycles, and since the ruined tower for which they aimed was barely six miles distant, it took them but a little while to approach it. Then a halt was called.
"Better feed now and so have less to carry," suggested Hugh. "We'll be all the fitter for searching. By the way, supposing the door's shut. There was a door, wasn't there, Clive?"
"That chap rushed out of one, anyway," came the answer. "Vote we go cautiously. Last time we went to the place across the fields and were seen at once. Supposing we try through the copse at the back. That'll give us cover right up to the doorway."
The suggestion was voted to be a good one, as also that of Hugh. The three hopped off their machines, and selecting a sheltered spot by the highway, sat on a gate and opened their parcels of provisions. The meal ended, they mounted again and rode a mile farther, till they had passed the tower on their right and were a little behind it. Then they dismounted, passed through a gap in a hedge, and plunged into the thick cover afforded by a copse which extended to the tower.
"Safe to leave the bikes here," whispered Bert, who once he was embarked on an adventure put his heart into it. "Let's make for that tree over there. It's the nearest to the gap through which we entered, and also the tallest. Then we shall find them again easily."
"Supposing someone else does?" asked Clive doubtfully.