Suddenly Danny had an idea.
“There must be a kind of cave or cellar they get into from under the water!” he said. “I expect they are burglars or smugglers or forgers or something. And that’s where they hide their treasure. Then, after dark, they come up.” He decided to have another try to make the Scouts take him seriously; but he was still sore at the memory of all the ridicule that had been heaped upon him before.
“I’ll log it down,” he said, taking out his notebook, “and after dark I’ll come back and lie in wait for him as he comes up. Then to-morrow I’ll make my report.”
He squatted down behind the ruined wall and began to write:
“July 26, 1914.
“Saw a tramp get out of a cart, where he was hiding. Followed him. He had something alive in a sack, but he pretended they were rabbit skins and bottles. Said he knew a pub. called ‘Green Man’ in Dutton, which there isn’t. Tracked him down by scraps of paper. He must have got into Mill Pond, but he has not got out yet (6.30).
“(Signed) D. Moor.”
Then he went home to supper.
CHAPTER IV
ONE A.M.
Night had fallen, soft and dark and still, when Danny climbed out of his little latticed window on to the roof of the porch. He could smell the honeysuckle though he could not see it. And somewhere a nightingale was singing. He had gone up to bed at 9 o’clock. His mother had come in and tucked him up, and, shutting the door, had gone downstairs.