“Hush up, youngster!” commanded Al Torrance. “Want to tell everybody all you know?”
“And it wouldn’t take him long at that—unless he stuttered,” said Frenchy, pounding Ikey between the shoulders.
“Oi, oi! I forgot,” explained Rosenmeyer, hoarsely. “Let up, Mike Donahue! Who are you taking for a bass drum?”
“Come on now, fellows,” Whistler said, leading the way. “Keep together and try to make as little noise as possible. We don’t know how near that spy may be.”
He had already found the second bunch of torn paper. Torry, walking close behind him, asked: “Will you know that German if you see him, Whistler?”
“Sure. He’s dressed like one of these farmers or drovers. But he’s got a goatee and a little moustache. He doesn’t look German at all.”
“You lads just point ’im hout to me!” grumbled Willum Johnson, walking next in line after Torry.
They got into a piece of woods after a little, finding that the paper trail led along a well defined path. Whether the German spy knew, or did not know, this part of England, he seemed to have a direct object in view, if George Belding’s trail was a thing to judge by.
This wood was nothing like the ordinary woods the American boys were used to around Seacove. It was cleared out like a grove, all the dry limbs lopped off the trees and stacked in certain places for firewood, and even the hedges thinned out for the same purpose.
“Why,” Al Torrance said, “we’d burn all that stuff as rubbish, wouldn’t we, Whistler?”