“I hope we won’t have any use for them, but it’s better to be careful than sorry,” he said, as he handed one to the Frenchman and slipped the other in his pocket.
As they stepped out of the office Bob noticed that it was warmer and that the haziness had increased.
“Wouldn’t wonder if it snowed before morning,” he said.
“Eef she get warm enough she may snow,” Jacques agreed.
It was so dark in the woods that they were obliged to go slowly to avoid striking the trees, and Bob chafed at their slow progress. Every little while they stopped to listen, but no sound save that caused by the wind, which was gradually growing stronger, came to their ears.
It was eleven o’clock when they started, and Bob’s watch told him that over an hour had passed when he almost ran into a thick clump of bushes which he at once recognized as the spot where he and Jack had hidden and from behind which he had shot the jug from the hand of the man.
“We’re almost there,” he said in a low tone, catching Jacques by the arm.
“Oui, I know thees place ver’ well,” the Frenchman whispered back, as he came to a halt. “We have to be ver’ careful now.”
The construction of Donahue’s camp was very similar to that which they had just left. There was the office, the mess house, bunk house and horse shed.
As silently as two ghosts they stole forward until they stood only a few feet from the office, the building which was nearest to their own camp. Not a light was visible in any of the buildings as they stood and eagerly gazed about them. Slowly they crept around the small building, pausing every few feet to listen with ear pressed close to the walls. But no sound was to be heard, and silently they made their way to the bunk house, where they repeated the performance with a like result. Only the snores and grunts of the sleeping men came faintly to their ears. The mess house and the horse shed were treated in like manner and with the same result.