"Nerve, aye! Cousin Ralph always had his locker full of that. But how shall we sleep? My head's all ahoo with what's happened, and I need sleep to clear away the fog. You and your mate take the bed, Matt, and I'll——"
"No, you don't," said Matt. "I'm for the couch in the other room."
Matt insisted on this, and finally had his way. He was not intending to sleep on the couch, but to go out to the barn and spend the night in the tonneau of the Red Flier. If Sercomb knew so much about automobiles, Matt felt that the touring-car would bear watching. He had no confidence in Sercomb, and felt sure that he was playing an underhand game of some kind.
Sitting down on the couch, Matt waited until the house was quiet, then went softly to the open window, climbed through, and made his way to the ground by means of the tree. Hardly had his feet struck solid earth, when he heard the front door drawn carefully open.
Sercomb stepped out and noiselessly closed the door behind him. Matt, intensely alive to the possibilities of the unexpected situation, drew back into the darker shadows of the tree-branches.
Sercomb, moving away a little from the house, gave a low whistle. A hoot, as of an owl, came instantly from the grove.
Sercomb started away rapidly in the direction from which the sound came.
Matt followed him, keeping carefully in the shadows.