“Well, the motor does make a racket when we give it a test whirl. Then some fellows have come rubbering around—that’s true. But Step and I haven’t peeped. Why, the other day, Jack Hagle——” There Poke paused, a line of perplexity showing, of a sudden, in his forehead. “I say, Sam! there was something funny about Hagle’s actions. You know what a queer way he has sometimes—almost hang-dog, it’s so cringing? Well, he was fair ready to fawn all over us, but the funny part was, he wanted to talk about the Trojan. It was as if he made our scheme an excuse for asking about our gang, first in general and then in particular about the Trojan. And he said he was sorry for him—he said it twice. He didn’t explain, though.”
“Did you ask him to?”
“N-no. You see, we wanted to get rid of him, so we didn’t make any more talk than we had to. After he’d gone we happened to think of the queer side of his performance.”
“Umph!” said Sam, non-committally. He regretted that Poke had not encouraged Hagle to talk, but understood that at present the Saracen represented almost everything the builder deemed worth a thought. Jack Hagle, shuffling, vacillating, a weakling, counted for little in the opinion of the boys of the town; it was not cause for wonder that Poke had been glad to be rid of him. But Sam was beginning to suspect that in some way or other, at present beyond his knowledge, Hagle might be able to throw light on the mystery which lay at the bottom of the troubles of the club.
About this time, too, Herman Boyd made a discovery, which caused Sam some uneasiness. There had been a sale of land near the lake, the purchase being made by a syndicate in which Zorn’s father was interested.
“I couldn’t find out just the boundaries,” Herman reported, “but I was told that the tract is across the lake from the pavilion. That’d put it somewhere in our district.”
Sam nodded. “It might, certainly.... If it does, I reckon we may have to move—if Ed Zorn can stir up his father to evict us.”
“Well, the Zorns have taken one of the new cottages. I hear quite a number of families are going to be in the lake colony this summer.”
“Umph! If they don’t bother us, we’ll agree not to bother them,” Sam remarked. “We are managing to flock by ourselves pretty successfully.”
“Oh, that’s our game, all right,” declared Herman.