“And that,” agreed his chum, unpuckering his lips, “is why firewood at home is worth twenty dollars a cord.”
“Wot’s that?” gasped Willum Johnson. “Four pun a cord? My heye! hit’s no wonder there’s so many millionaires in Hamerica. Ye ’ave to be a millionaire to live there—eh, wot?”
“Right you are, man,” said Al. “Hi! where’s the next bunch of paper, Whistler?”
It seemed that the trail of paper fragments stopped abruptly. The party scattered through the wood, searching thoroughly for yards on either side of the path.
“Perhaps he ran out of paper,” suggested Frenchy.
Whistler, who was ahead, suddenly came to the edge of a hollow—a steep fall of some ten or a dozen feet. He parted the bushes and peered down into this hole. Then he uttered a startled cry that brought the others to the spot on the run.
CHAPTER V—THE TRICKSTER
“Easy, boy!” Al Torrance advised, hearing Whistler’s cry of surprise. “Want to give us away to that Heinie if he is in hearing?”
But Whistler Morgan, after his startled exclamation, burst through the bushes and hurried down the bank of the hollow. A figure lay at the bottom—a figure dressed in a blue smock, loose trousers, heavy shoes and a cap. The cap was pulled down over the person’s face, and he was rolled sideways so that Whistler could not distinguish a feature.
There was, however, something besides these points that had caused Whistler’s ejaculation and excitement.