In terror, Sandy shook his head.
“Keep down,” he trembled, “or they may see us.”
Dick grew suddenly tense. The two men had reached the door of the cabin, and for a brief moment stood undecided. Then the tall man raised a gnarled hand and struck the door so violently and unexpectedly that Sandy and Dick both jumped back, as if they, instead of the rough pine barrier, had received the full impact of that mighty blow.
The echo had scarcely subsided, when the tall man struck again.
“Open up! Open up!” he thundered. “Creel, open up this yere door.”
The door swung back on its rusty hinges, and then the boys saw Creel framed in the aperture. But it was a different Creel than the man they had seen previously. He looked much older. The stoop to his shoulders was more noticeable. A pathetic figure now, a terror-struck human derelict. At the very best he could offer but feeble resistance to these two terrible fellows, who had come storming and raging upon him.
“Guess yuh know what we’ve come fer, Creel,” the little man snarled. “Yuh can guess, can’t yuh? Quick now, an’ bring it out. We’re in a hurry, I tell yuh. Quick!”
Creel made the fatal mistake of pretending he did not know what the other was talking about. He raised a trembling hand.
“If you’ll explain a little more clearly, gentlemen, what you want I’ll—”
The sentence was not completed. The tall man reached out with one arm and caught Creel about the neck. Scarcely seeming to exert himself, he lifted him completely off his feet, holding him dangling—head pressed back against the frame of the door. For a brief moment the body of the recluse remained pinioned there, then was suddenly released and fell with a muffled thud across the threshold.