Having been neglected for many years, it was now only a tumble-down wreck. The big wheel was covered with green moss over which tiny streams of water trickled to drop with a splash into the pool beneath.
In the eyes of Billy, it had a haunted look. He admitted to himself that he would not much fancy paying a visit to the old mill after darkness had set in. Of course, he did not believe in ghosts, for what boy will admit that weakness? But even the presence of owls and bats, and perhaps a prowling mink from the stream, would be apt to make a fellow’s flesh creep if he found himself left alone in such a place.
“Think they’re there, Hugh?” Monkey Stallings murmured in the other’s ear.
“Somebody is, for a fact,” came the ready response, “because if you look sharp you can see a little smoke curling up from the chimney.”
Gusty had not thought to glance at that part of the mill before. Now he saw that this was so. Evidently there must be some sort of a fire within. And as the mill was said to have been deserted by its owner years back, the chances seemed to be that this blaze had been made by the tramps.
“Wait here for me while I take a scout and find out if it’s so,” Hugh told his companions, “and be sure to keep down, because one of them might step out suddenly and discover you. That would put the fat in the fire, and spoil all our fine plans. I depend on you, Billy, and Monkey.”
“Count me in too, Hugh,” urged Gusty, perhaps considerably to his own surprise, for it was a new role for him to play “second fiddle” to anybody.
So Hugh crawled away. He went on his hands and knees, and avoiding the open road, chose rather to creep along where the wild growing bushes would shelter him from being observed. So cleverly did he advance, Gusty noticed, that even should one of the tramps be watching, there was little chance that he might discover anything amiss. Plainly these scouts had learned their little lesson and knew how to play the game, he told himself, as he saw Hugh sliding across a more exposed spot on his stomach, hitching himself along almost as a snake might have done.
Hugh was gone for some little time, and then he reappeared, returning over the same course he had taken before. Billy immediately read success upon the other’s face.
“Then they are there, is that it, Hugh?” he queried when he could place his lips close to the other’s ear.