“We’ve marked this spot so we could find it again if we wanted to,” he explained to them. “You notice that Ralph isn’t using his torch any more. He thinks it might be dangerous if anyone happened to be looking this way.”
“And do we creep up so as to take a peek in at the shack then, Hugh?” asked Billy.
“Yes, that’s the program,” the scout master told them. “Remember, everybody, not to speak a word unless you’re forced to, and then let it be as soft as the night wind whispering through the leaves. Come on!”
They were wild with eagerness as they obeyed their leader. Each scout mentally resolved that it would not be set down at his door if their finely-laid plans missed connections, and success failed to reward their efforts.
In this way, then, they moved along, and drew close up to the house on the abandoned public highway, from which that light shone dimly through the dirty window sash.
CHAPTER XII.
AT THE END OF THE TRAIL.
Hugh had already learned the nature of the building upon which they had come while following the trail of the three disgruntled former guards who had been let go when the sheriff took charge of affairs in the strike zone.
It was an old, tumbledown structure, and, from what he could see of it in the semi-darkness of the night, the scout master believed it had formerly been used as a residence and blacksmith shop combined.
At some time in the dim past, no doubt, the brawny smith who dwelt there had made a fair living by handling his share of the traffic of wagons that rumbled past the place. The building of the new road had left him high and dry, so that it became necessary for him to seek another location, perhaps at some crossroads, in order to continue his vocation.
Of course all this just flashed through the mind of the scout master when he saw what manner of building it was they had come upon. He could not spare the time at present to look into it any deeper. There was work to be done, and, if they hoped to come out of this affair with credit to themselves as worthy scouts, they must devote their entire time and attention to the task in hand.