“There doesn’t need be,” responded his chum. “It’s easy to guess that this comes from the same crowd who kidnapped you and me—the same men who tried to blow me up. There’s no need for a name.”
“No, I guess you’re right,” Ned agreed. “Still, if we could trace these fellows——”
“Oh, I’m going to try!” exclaimed Tom. “I’m not going to sit idly down and let them think they have us scared. Eradicate, show me just where you met this man and tell me what he looked like.”
The negro did his best, but he was getting old and his memory was not what it had been. He gave a rather hazy description of the bearer of the sinister warning, but he was able to point out the place where he had come upon the intruder. Intruder was exactly what the messenger was, for, since beginning work on his latest invention, Tom had taken precautions to admit none but his own men to the plant.
“He met me heah,” said Eradicate pointing to a clump of bushes near the electrically charged fence. That is, it was electrically charged at night. During the day, when many watchmen were on the alert, Tom did not have the current turned on.
“But I’m going to have it on after this,” he decided, when a search of the grounds in the vicinity of the place where Eradicate had received the note revealed no one. “He must have gotten over the fence in some way, didn’t he, Rad?”
“I didn’t see him shinny ober de fence, no, Massa Tom.”
“Well, I think he must have come in that way. Where did he go after he left the note with you?”
“He jes’ disappeared, dat’s whut he done! He jes’ vanished like!”
“He must be a voodoo man,” suggested Ned jokingly.