CHAPTER VI
A REAL DISCOVERY
Darkness found Curlie again on the edge of the Forest Preserve. This time he was on foot and alone. Apparently he carried nothing. His right hip pocket bulged, the handle of a flashlight protruded from his coat pocket, that was all.
He did not pause at the spot where they had hid their car the night before, but continued down the main road for a half mile farther. There he plunged into the forest, to continue his journey under cover. Eleven o'clock found him concealed in a clump of bushes in the woods that lay opposite the millionaire's driveway.
"If they come to-night," he whispered to himself, "I'll know whether they belong on that estate or not, and if they do I'll know who it is. Anyway, I'll know it's one of J. Anson's folks. And we'll see if it is a boy or the girl?"
The question interested him. He had no relish for getting a girl into trouble, especially that frank-faced, smiling girl he had seen on horseback.
"But the thing must stop," he told himself sternly, taking a tight grip on something in his hip pocket.
The night was clear. He could see objects quite plainly. The trees, the shrubbery, the stone pillars at the entrance to the driveway, stood out in bold relief. For a time he sat staring at them in silence. At last he closed his eyes and slept, as was his custom, all but his ears.
He was startled from this stupor by a sudden flash of light which made its presence felt even through his eyelids.
As his eyes flew open, he found himself staring at two glowing headlights. The next instant he had flattened himself in the grass.