At a previous time there had been a half-hearted attempt made to start operations, looking to rebuilding the falling walls of the abandoned mill. It had been given up as hopeless, but, at the same time, quite a pile of stones had been carried into the place. By good luck it came about that this heap was just where it could be utilized by the scouts. Indeed, it had served them as a splendid cover more than half the time while they were creeping forward.
Behind it they ranged, still on their hands and knees. The fire flickered, and occasionally snapped as some brittle section of wood was greedily seized upon by the flames. Deep and harsh sounded the voices of the lounging tramps. Lazily the wreaths of smoke curled upward from their pipes.
Hugh was fully awake to making his arrangements while the chance remained. He had it fixed so that about half of his force hovered near one end of the rock pile, while the rest waited close to the other termination.
Some of the scouts were holding themselves in just such positions as they would have assumed had they been entered for a fifty-yard sprint, and at the sound of the pistol expected to fairly shoot away. They crouched low, with their finger tips placed on the rough deal planks of the floor of the mill.
Every fellow was wondering how Don Miller and his four climbers might be making out. They had had ample time, it would seem, to cover the ground; and it was to be hoped that not many more minutes would elapse before the scratching of the imaginary rat four times would tell Hugh that all was ready.
If ever boys were keyed up to top-notch fever, those seven were who lay back of the friendly rock pile, and counted the passing seconds. Every nerve in their whole bodies seemed on edge. Small sounds were terribly magnified; and several times one or the other of them would fancy that he had caught the eagerly expected signal from the leader of the Fox patrol up there in the dense gloom of the loft just above where the tramps lay on their hay.
Oh! it was cruel the way Don Miller held off! Could anything have happened to upset his share in the general plan? Had one of his command slipped on those mossy and slimy planks of the dam, and fallen in? Since they had heard nothing that sounded like an alarm it did not seem possible.
And then at last it came—one, two, three, four—plain scratches, as though an industrious rat had set himself a gigantic task.
It was time!