But the men disappeared by jumping over a fence that ran along the woods on the left. The automobile, a man and a woman in it, dashed by the boys, leaving a cloud of dust.
“So ho!” exclaimed Lanky, “our friends don’t want to be seen! Suppose we make ourselves scarce till they come back to the road.”
The boys hid in the woods, and presently the three men reappeared on the road. Tom and Lanky followed suit, and the march was resumed.
A mile more, and the men came to a crossroad. They turned toward the west. When the boys reached the crossroad Lanky stopped. “This is a private lane,” he said. “See, it leads up to that barn and stable. And there’s a big house. Our friends are going in the back way.”
There was a screen of trees at the corner. The boys went along the lane until the screen gave way to a close-cropped hedge. Here they had a view of a wide, velvety lawn and the large house, red-striped awnings at the windows, on a gently-rising slope.
“Hello!” exclaimed Tom. “Look there!”
There was no heed of his telling Lanky to look. Lanky was staring at that part of the lawn that was shielded by the trees at the corner. There was a small, one-story house that looked as if it were made of cardboard, a very picturesque building, brightly painted to resemble cross-timbers, with two little lattice windows. And grouped about the grass in front of the house were a dozen or so men and women, all of them dressed in fancy costumes, looking as if they had just stepped out of a picture book or down from the stage of a theatre.
“My eye!” said Tom. “What is it? A fancy dress party?”
“Looks like a Robin Hood scene,” said Lanky. “Some of them have bows and arrows. See that girl in pink working that churn.” He watched for a moment; then added, “So that’s why our friends the highwaymen came along this way.”
“They don’t seem to have joined the crowd,” said Tom. “Why didn’t they jump over the hedge?”