“There comes Hugh right now,” added Bud, with the smile of conscious superiority spread across his face, “and there’ll be something doing soon, believe me.”
The scout master approached. He did not look particularly happy himself, for, to tell the truth, Hugh had failed to succeed in finding any conclusive evidence that promised to take them to where the absent Felix might be found. When he saw how his two comrades were beckoning to hasten his steps, and discovered their triumphant manner, Hugh lost no time in joining them.
“Glad to see that you’ve had more success this time than fell to my lot,” was his salutation as he came up; “now string it off, and tell me what’s happened to make you both look so oh-be-joyful.”
Bud waited for no second invitation. It did not happen every day that he was given such a splendid chance to shine in the limelight, and he would not have been a genuine boy had he failed to take advantage of the golden opportunity. So, in as terse terms as he could possibly summon to the front, he told the story of how, after a myriad of efforts, he had finally run across what seemed to be a most promising clue.
Hugh listened and made little comment until the story had been ended. Then he gripped the other’s hand.
“Bud, old man, I’m beginning to think that the luck of this deal is running strongly in your direction!” he exclaimed, heartily. “If that master schemer of a Luther Gregory is close by, the man he hired must know where to find him; and it stands to reason that if he succeeded in bundling Felix out of camp, even if no one is able to tell how it could be done, why the first thing he’d do would be to take him to that house.”
“Oh! and then all we’ve got to do,” broke in the delighted Blake, who was hardly able to keep from dancing on his tiptoes, such was his increasing happiness, “is to get a detail of the guardsmen, and go there to arrest the whole bunch.”
“Of course that’s our move,” admitted Hugh, “though we mustn’t be too fast about carrying it out. The whole night is before us, you know. They won’t hurt Felix, if our theory is correct. All they want to do is to keep him out of our reach for twenty-four hours.”
“But we ought to see Captain Barclay again, hadn’t we, Hugh?” questioned Bud.
“That would be our wisest move,” agreed the patrol leader, “because we’ll need some help to round up those rascals; and it can only be gotten through an order signed by our friend, the artillery captain.”