"He had asked me to watch out for a red car with a khaki-colored top, that might have two men in it, one of them owning to a glass eye."
"Good gracious!" said Jack; "that tall chap did have a bogus eye, for a fact. And when you left me in town you hurried around to the post-office to find Mr. Pender, didn't you? I see it all now. He never came home for supper, as far as I know. I reckon he must have got a rig of some sort, and put out for the mill pond. But what about Solus Smithers—they asked after him, you know?"
Paul pointed to the marks on the ground.
"Unless I'm wrong those are his tracks. I noticed that he had big feet at the time he came out and ordered us to clear away from the pond, and threatened us with his gun. Yes, perhaps he got home to find visitors waiting for him," Paul observed, just as though he could read all these things from the trail.
"Then we go on, do we?" asked Bobolink, eagerly.
He had been listening to what passed between his two comrades, and while it was partly Greek to him, enough of the truth filtered through to give him a creepy sensation, as though cold water were being poured down his back.
Bobolink was no coward though, and while he shivered it was more through a delicious frame of mind over the chance of an adventure than because he felt fear.
"Straight on, as long as these lanterns hold out. I see yours has begun to flicker already, William. There, it's puffed out; and my own isn't near as strong a light as it was."
Paul seemed to be a true prophet, for inside of five minutes the lanterns "gave up the ghost," the last to expire being that of Jack.
"What's doing now?" demanded Jack.