“Come along—” he led them down a path which cut a narrow swath through the field behind the house. “Maybe our friends are up there in the cabin and maybe they’re not. My sister tells me she heard a car stop out on the road a couple of hours ago, but she didn’t get out of bed to see who it might be. It was raining hard then, and as you aviators say, the visibility was poor. She didn’t hear anybody walk up the drive past the house, though.”
“They could have cut round the house and climbed the hill from a point farther up or down the valley—that is, if they were trying to establish an alibi—and if we find them at home, after all,” suggested Bill.
“Then,” said Osceola, who was bringing up the rear, “those guys had a good long way to hoof it.”
“How come?”
“Swamps. Down at the foot of this meadow, and as far as you can see along the valley.”
“That’s right,” agreed Mr. Davis. “Any other way but this would add at least three miles to their hike. That broad, sluggish stream ahead of us runs the full length of the swamp and only partly drains it. The bridge at the end of this path is the only way across.”
“Is that the house, half way up the hillside in that grove of trees and underbrush?” inquired Osceola.
“You’ve got good eyes to spot it at this time o’ day,” said their guide. “No—that house belongs to a man named Kennedy, although it is empty at present. Kolinski’s cabin is higher up and over to the left.”
Still in single file they passed onto a corduroy trail through the swamp and over the bridge. On the farther side, the ground rose steeply. A few yards beyond they came to a fork in the path.
“Take the left to Kolinski’s—” announced Mr. Davis. He stopped and turned to the lads. “My plan is to take this right hand path to Kennedy’s and up through the woods. In that way we can make a half circle so as to come down on Kolinski’s place from above and be under cover the whole way. We’ll have broad daylight to contend with by the time we get there. If we go direct, anybody in the house can see us pretty well the whole distance up the hill. What do you say?”