“We’ll start now, I guess. It must be close on to nine o’clock. There isn’t much danger of anyone seeing us on the road after that hour.”
Dick, who had been an amazed listener of the foregoing conversation, concluded it was time to withdraw.
When he got outside he found the light had been extinguished in the kitchen, and he took that as a sign that the trio were on the move.
Fearing his presence might be detected in the yard if he attempted to recross it to the fence, he crept under a corner of the porch and waited.
Mudgett and the two boys appeared almost immediately and walked out to the road.
Dick was in a sweat lest they might discover the team where it had been waiting a good half-hour for him to return.
But they turned up the road without looking in the other direction, and when Dick reached the gate he could just make out their figures disappearing in the distance.
CHAPTER XI.
DICK AND JOE ON THE TRAIL OF MUDGETT, TIM BUNKER AND THEIR DUPE.
“You’ve been a mighty long time investigating matters,” grumbled Joe Fletcher, poking his head over the seat when he heard his chum’s voice, for he had retired to the interior of the wagon to keep warm.