At last he stood still for a moment, listening. Then he slipped in behind a tree.
He heard a crackle of branches. Some one was moving about among the trees, only a few yards ahead.
Frank peeped out.
He saw a dark figure emerge from behind a clump of evergreens. The man stepped out, looked cautiously about, then moved up the slope in the direction of the cabin.
“Hanleigh!” said Frank, under his breath.
Frank Hardy’s first impulse was to whistle, in order to bring the others to his assistance. Then he paused.
What did Hanleigh want? What did he plan to do?
CHAPTER XVII
The Escape
Frank was so close to the man that he recognized him readily. He knew now that Hanleigh was the man who had stolen their supplies and hidden them, evidently to get the boys to leave the island. He knew that Hanleigh was the man who had lost the mysterious Sparewell notebook. He wanted to know more. If he raised the alarm now, the man would simply refuse to talk.
Frank waited until the fellow had vanished among the trees. Then he turned and made his way toward the cabin by a short-cut. He wanted to reach the place first and warn Joe, so that they could better observe the man’s actions without raising an immediate alarm.