“Well, then, don’t you suppose that if you were scouting after an enemy you’d have to take bigger chances than this?”
Hiram said no more. Kicking their shoes off, and leaving them by the grass hummock, the two boys crept forward as silently as two cats. In the yielding sand their feet made no noise.
As Tubby had surmised, at the rear of the house the roof came almost to the ground, for the sand was heaped up against that particular wall, being driven in big dunes by the winds off the ocean.
“Up with you,” whispered Tubby, giving Hiram a “boost.” The Yankee boy’s long legs carried him onto the roof in a jiffy. Then came Tubby. Already the two boys could hear below them the low hum of voices, Freeman Hunt’s sharp, boyish tones mingling with the bass drone of the elder men’s conversation.
The roof was formed of driftwood and old timbers, and was as easy to climb as a staircase. Before many seconds, the boys were at the chimney. With beating pulses and a heart that throbbed faster than was altogether comfortable, in spite of his easy-going disposition, Tubby raised himself and peered down the flue. It was of brick. But to his astonishment, as he peered over the edge, he found he had a clear view of the room below.
The chimney, as is often the case in rough dwellings, did not go all the way down to the floor. Instead, it was supported on two beams, so that, peering down it, the boy could command a view of the room below, just as if he had been looking down a telescope.
Round a table were seated Stonington Hunt, the two rough-looking men who had stolen the wallet, and Freeman Hunt. A smoky glass lamp stood on the rough box which served for a table. Spread out on the table, too, was something that almost made Tubby let go his hold of the chimney and go sliding down the roof. It was the wallet, and beside it lay the paper covered with figures and markings, which, the boy had no doubt, was the precious document of the major.
“We’ll have to get out of here early in the morning,” Stonington Hunt was saying. “I don’t fancy having the police on my heels.”
“No. And Jim here says that those pesky Boy Scouts are mixed up in the search for the wallet,” struck in Freeman Hunt.
“Well, this is the time we give those brats the slip,” growled his father. “Come on, let’s turn in. We’ll get the motor going and drop down the creek before daylight.”