“I think you imagined that,” said Tom; “the wind was blowing the bushes, though maybe at that⸺ Listen!”
They both paused, speechless. There was the sound of footsteps approaching the door.
CHAPTER XXIV—Alias Spiff
Tom and Brent stared at each other. The footfalls approached nearer and nearer, sounding clear upon the brittle underbrush which obscured the beaten track to the door; clear as footsteps on a pavement, as the driving wind which rattled the door and window, bore the sound to the cabin.
Just as the sound ceased, Brent drawled in his usual half-interested manner, “Come in, the place is yours.”
Tom, however, jumped to his feet, fully prepared, watching the door keenly, intently. His attitude said that he was ready and not to be taken unawares.
The door opened and a small boy in a heavy collared gray sweater entered. He was a redheaded boy with the usual accompaniment of freckles and he had a black smear at one end of his mouth. He might have been fourteen, certainly not older than that. He wore khaki trousers and indeed the whole part of him that projected below the all-embracing sweater showed him to be a Scout of the Scouts. He had, what seems often to be found in company with red hair and freckles, a little round nose which somehow bespoke an impudent self-possession.
“Well—I’ll—be—hanged!” Tom exploded.
“How do you do, sweater?” said Brent, eyeing him whimsically.
“I got lost,” said the boy.