“Be careful, Ben,” Mr. Hardy called after him, also aroused by Mrs. Hardy, and getting ready to join his son in a search for the intruder in the yard below.
Ben unlocked the rear door and rushed out into the yard. As he passed the back porch he grabbed up the end of a hard wood hoe handle, broken off short and used by Mrs. Hardy to brace the screen door.
Ben’s first glance was toward his beloved flying machine. He was immensely relieved to discover no one near it. Apparently it had not been disturbed. The gate of the work yard stood open, and also the door of the work shed. With a spring Ben pushed this door shut, slipped the heavy latch, and standing on guard armed with the hoe handle awaited the arrival of his father.
Mrs. Hardy had lit a lamp and set it in the rear window upstairs, so that its rays might throw an illumination over the yard. When Mr. Hardy appeared he carried the lighted cellar lantern.
“Where is the trespasser, Ben?” he inquired.
“In there, if anywhere,” said Ben, tapping lightly on the shed door with the end of his club. “Mother says she saw a man go into the shed.”
Mr. Hardy undid the catch while Ben stood ready for assault or defence. His father had the lantern beyond the open doorway, and in his usual mild and inoffensive way inquired:
“Is anybody there?”
“There doesn’t seem to be,” said Ben, peering past his father as there was no response to the challenge.
Both entered the shed. They could not discover the slightest indication that there had been any trespasser in evidence since they had last visited the place, earlier in the evening. Everything was in its accustomed place. Ben took the lantern and flashed its rays in all the remote cluttered-up corners of the structure.