“I know it, but those men look like ugly customers. I wonder what they can be up to?”
“They are—” began Blake, and then he pulled Joe down beside him in the bushes.
“He’s turned off to one side,” Blake went on. “He hasn’t seen us, and he doesn’t know just where to look. He may pass us by. Keep still!”
Together they crouched down. The man looked around as though to trace the noise which had been made when Joe accidentally stepped on a stick, which broke under his weight.
“Don’t breathe,” whispered Blake, with his lips close to Joe’s ear. “I think he’s going to pass us by.”
The man paused, seemed as if about to come directly for them again, and then dashed off to one side. He made a leap into the bushes, only to discover nothing, as his chagrined exclamation showed.
“I told you so!” growled one of his companions. “It was only the wind.”
“The wind doesn’t break sticks,” was the snappish reply.
“Then it was a bird—maybe a fishhawk.”
“Maybe,” assented the man who had started to make the search. “But I thought some one was spying on us, and if they were——” He did not finish, but glared angrily around. He was so close to the boys that they could hear his rapid breathing, but the leafy screen effectively hid them from view. “If I catch any one,” he went on, “he’ll wish he never ran across Hemp Danforth!” and he shook a big fist.