Hugh went even further and figured that the abductors would hardly try to do their work until the shades of evening had commenced to gather, so they might slip away without being detected.
The boys were already at the works now, having skirted the settlement on the way, and noticed that there was renewed excitement as the padrone started the inmates to scouring the immediate vicinity in search of traces of the missing child. Hugh could see that the women who wore those bright-colored handkerchiefs about their heads seemed to be most in evidence, nor did he wonder at this; since they had children of their own, ragged and dirty-faced, but nevertheless precious to them, and they could therefore feel for the stricken millionaire.
“They’ve forgotten just now all they suffered at his hands, I do believe,” Nurse Jones was saying in the ear of the scout master, for she persisted in tripping along close to Hugh.
“It seems so,” the boy replied; “and I hope Mr. Campertown will not forget the fact, either. If we have the good luck to fetch Reuben back, I’m going to hold him to the promise he made us; and I know what it is I mean to ask him to do.”
“I think I can give a good guess, Hugh,” Nurse Jones murmured. “I wish to say that the thought does you credit. I only hope and pray we may find the child, and that he can be taken back unharmed. I believe it will be a turning point in the life of that stern old man. It’s a lesson he’s been in need of——”
Now that they had reached the stockade around the cement works, they found, as upon the occasion of their other visit, that some of the sheriff’s posse stood on guard.
Apparently they had received their orders not to debar any of the scouts from entering as they pleased, for when Hugh started to pass through the gate there was no remonstrance made.
“What d’ye reckon Hugh means to do here, Billy?” whispered Whistling Smith, as with all the others he passed inside the building that had been without workers for so long a time now.
“Why, here’s where the little chap was when last seen,” explained Billy; “and to get on his track we’ve had to come here. If we only had a dog now, one of the right kind that’s accustomed to following a scent, a hound like they use to hunt escaped convicts from the turpentine camps down South, all we would have to do would be to let the dog sniff at some article of clothing worn by the kid. After that he’d pick out the trail, just by his sense of smell, and lead us straight to the spot.”
“But Ralph is a crackerjack of a trailer, you remember, Billy,” said Whistling Smith; “and he’s bound to do his level best this time.”