“The house is over there,” he whispered. “Foster knows this country around here like a book. I sent those two men to reconnoiter it. The garage is a few hundred feet ahead of us. We’re going to spread out now and surround it.”
I stood with him in the starlit road, for the night was moonless though clear, and watched the men file past me like so many ghosts and disappear into the darkness ahead and on either side of us. And presently the Chief and Foster and I were alone in the road.
“Come along,” he whispered, and we walked ahead.
As I tramped along in the darkness my heart lightened considerably. The goal was close at hand now and I felt pretty certain that they would not foresee an attack on the garage. They knew that I had escaped, and they knew that I knew the location of the house. But running into the doctor and learning of the suspicious garage was pure chance and they could not know about that. So I felt pretty secure that we were not walking into another trap. For I hated to think of our fate, even so many of us, if they caught us down in that tunnel.
Presently a building loomed up ahead of us and a little back from the road. It was a garage, with the familiar red gasolene pump standing outside it. A single dim light flickered through the open doors.
“This is no place for a garage,” whispered Foster. “I didn’t even know that there was one here. It hasn’t been here very long. I’m sure of that, I’ve only been away from these parts about a year.”
Suddenly the Chief spoke out in his natural voice, even raising it a little. “Well, by the Lord Henry, here’s a garage! What do you know about that? Boys, we’re in luck!”
He stepped forward quickly into the doorway and we followed his lead, uttering exclamations of surprise. There were two men lounging in chairs at the back of the garage, but there were no cars in it. They sprang up when we entered and they seemed anything but glad to see us.
The Chief tramped down the length of the place toward them with us behind him. “Hey, you fellows,” he called, “I’ve got a broken-down car back in the main road a ways. Can you come and take a look at it?”
The two men looked at each other. Then one of them, a surly, dark individual, shook his head. “Naw, not to-night. We’re just going off. Bring it around in the morning.”