"Sure thing!" put in Paul Jones, in his very positive, opinionated way. "Nothing to it but keep out of their sight. They'll go clear through to Queensville, likely. In three days more the whole county around the race course will be alive with strange automobiles. They'll never get a line on us if we keep out of sight. Simply means we've got to watch them some, though, so's to be sure they aren't watching us."
"Maybe we had better look into what they're doing," Phil acquiesced and all heartily agreed. The fun of the situation, a hide-and-seek game in automobiles with the whole vicinity of the Gold Cup race course—a stretch of territory twenty-five miles in length and as many broad—as the grounds of action, appealed instantly to each one.
The best part of it, too, was that the Chosen Trio were "It"—the ones who must do the searching. The desirable side of the game, as the ones who were hunted, had fallen to the Auto Boys. Believing as they did, that their hiding place was reasonably secure against discovery, too, and there being never a rule of play to require them to call out or give any sort of clue to their whereabouts, the prospect became all the more interesting to the lads as they talked it over.
One thing of which all four boys assured one another was that they had too much at stake to incur any sort of risk of their camp being found. Also, they were agreed, there must be no underestimating of the resourcefulness and cunning of the Trio. It was really surprising that the latter had succeeded so well thus far in finding the route the Thirty traversed. Their evident perseverance in doing so was, as well, ample indication of their serious intention to do all they threatened—find out the meaning of the mysterious expedition and play mischief with that undertaking generally.
All day Saturday the Auto Boys had spent in erecting their permanent camp and in establishing connections for such part of their food supply as they could best obtain from some farm. The latter had not been easily accomplished. There was little cultivated land in the immediate neighborhood of the great woods. The nearest farmhouse was a half-mile away and the next one an equal distance beyond.
Unluckily, too, it had been found necessary to go to the second of the farms in order to obtain milk. It would mean a two-mile tramp each morning, there and back. Either this or a trip in the car, and on account of the rough ground between the camp and the public road, the latter method was hardly desirable, as a daily practice.
Aside from this inconvenience the young campers were highly pleased with their location. They had yet to make arrangements for sending and receiving mail, but this they had planned to do on Sunday afternoon. Their letters home having been written, the most convenient grocery or other source of general supplies discovered, and all the odd tasks incident to getting settled cleared away, they would be ready on Monday morning, they planned, to begin the long contemplated attack upon the secrets of the great, silent woods.
But now had come the unexpected arrival of Messrs. Gaines, Pickton and Perth much nearer these scenes than any of the four friends had supposed they ever would be. It might make an entire revision of the program necessary.
"As to that same, we shall see," said Billy Worth, looking up from the letter writing on which, barring numerous interruptions, all were engaged.
"How d'ye spell 'barnacles'?" demanded Paul Jones, insistently, the same moment.