“Yes, it’s about half a mile up this road and then quite a distance back from the sea-beach.”
“Then as we’re so close, you’d better shut down your machine. They might hear it and be on the lookout.”
“That’s so. Get ready to dismount then. All right? Whoa!”
The motorcycle stopped and the boys jumped off. Pepper leaned his machine up against the ruined store and prepared to follow Ding-dong and guide him. But the latter protested. There was no sense in Pepper’s running the risk of being captured, he argued; and besides, if he (Ding-dong) got into trouble, it would be the better plan to have Pepper out of harm’s way so that he could go back and give the alarm.
Pepper was forced to agree to this logic, and it was decided that if Ding-dong didn’t return in an hour Pepper was to ride at full speed back to town and get help. The boys shook hands and parted, Pepper assuring Ding-dong that he could not mistake the house, as there was only one in that direction.
It would be idle to deny that Ding-dong felt a thrill that was not wholly excitement as he struck off down the dark road alone. To make matters worse, it began to drizzle and blow; the storm which had already struck Goat Island was sweeping inland.
“Suppose this should all turn out to be a wild goose chase,” the boy thought as he trudged along, “I’d look like a fine idiot. But somehow I don’t think it will be. I’ve got a strong feeling that Minory’s jig is up at last. However, we’ll soon see.”
At length, to his right, and back from the road, he spied a solitary light.
“I guess that is the place,” he thought with a sudden sensation of tightness in his throat as if his heart had just taken up quarters there. To the boy there appeared something sinister, something like the evil glare of a one-eyed man in this solitary light in that lonely part of the country.
But Ding-dong didn’t hesitate long.