“You give me a pain, Rit,” said Micky scathingly. “What the dickens does a little rain matter when we’ve got a chance like this? You oughtn’t to howl. You’re so well padded you wouldn’t feel it. Besides, it won’t be long at all. It’ll be good and dark by half past five on a night like this. I’m game to stay, Cavvy. So’s Champ, aren’t you, old kid?”
Ferris acquiesced, though not quite with McBride’s eager impulsiveness. The woods were cold and dreary and the possibilities ahead of them did not fill him with delight. But he was too keen an admirer of Jimmy Cavanaugh to risk losing the other’s good opinion. Finally, with the other three against him, Ritter gave in, though with much grumbling and complaint, and a good deal more secret apprehension, and leaving the path they found a more secluded spot back in the undergrowth in which to pass their vigil.
This did not prove so long or so tedious as some of them expected. They were wrought-up and excited, and there were plans to make and possibilities to discuss. Moreover, the early twilight, hastened by the lowering clouds, fell swiftly. Long before six it was quite dark. Twenty minutes later Cavvy decided that it was time to move.
Cautiously they crept out of the bushes and felt their way along the path. It was spooky business, this stealing through the darkness, and more than one heart beat faster at the thought of what might lie before them. At the edge of the clearing they paused, trying to make out the lines of the old house through the gloom. A cold sleety drizzle had begun to fall, and with a shiver Ritter turned up his mackinaw collar.
Cavanaugh, in advance, took a few more steps forward and then stopped again. Of a sudden, out of the blackness before them, came a faint, wavering glow of light. For a second or two they failed to place it. Then the vague outlines of a window sprang up in the darkness, only to fade again as the light flickered, died out, to reappear presently in another window on the upper floor.
“He’s moving around up there,” whispered Cavvy. “I guess it’s safe enough. Champ, you and Rit stay here. Better get off the path a little; he might come out. Mind you don’t run into the pond. Come ahead, Micky.”
Ritter and Ferris stumbled gropingly from the path, the former giving another shudder at the thought of blundering into that slimy pool. The other two disappeared instantly into the shadows.
They moved cautiously, and as they neared the house even their occasional stealthy whispers ceased. The light remained stationary in the window near the corner where they had first glimpsed the fat man’s face. This was no proof that he also was there, but some chance had to be taken, and Micky found no slight comfort in the heft of the stout stick in his hand.
At the rear of the building, under the shadow of the great pine, not a ray of light relieved the gloom. The boys felt their way past the closed door and on to the woodshed. Here McBride helped his friend to the low roof and then retired a little way to keep watch according to agreement.
Slowly and carefully Cavanaugh edged his way along the roof, thankful for the rubber soles which gave him some slight hold on the slippery surface. Without them he would certainly have slid off, for there was nothing to take hold of with his hands, and he had constantly to feel ahead for holes and weak spots in the rotten shingles.