“My idea, then, is to establish a permanent camp from which we can work, the location of course to depend entirely on circumstances, that may arise after we reach our destination. We are going into this thing practically blindfold you see, and so we shall have to leave the arrangement of a host of minor details till we arrive there.”
“You mean to strike right back into the wilderness?” asked Billy.
“As soon as possible after our arrival at Miami,” was the businesslike rejoinder. “Every minute of our time will be precious. Oh, there’s heaps to be done,” broke off Frank.
All the boys had to laugh heartily at the wave of the hands with which Frank accompanied his last words. But their merriment was cut short by a sharp exclamation from Billy.
“I say, Frank,” whispered the young reporter, “have you noticed that fellow at the next table?” He indicated a short dark sallow-faced man sitting at a table a few feet from them and to whom most of their conversation must have been audible.
“He’s not a beauty,” remarked Harry in the same low tone; “what about him, Billy?”
“Well,” said the reporter seriously, “I may be wrong and I may not—and I rather think I’m not,—but if he hasn’t been listening with all his ears to what we’ve been saying I’m very much mistaken.”
Frank bit his lip with vexation. In their enthusiasm the youthful adventurers had been foolishly discussing their plans in tones which any one sitting near could have overheard without much difficulty. The boys realized this and also that if the man really turned out to have been an eavesdropper that they had involuntarily furnished him with much important information about their plans.
The object of their suspicion apparently saw that they had observed him, for as they resumed their talk in lowered tones he called for his bill and having paid it with a hand that flashed with diamonds, he left the dining-room.
“Have you seen him before?” asked Frank of Billy.