Sam and Poke, Step and the Trojan and Herman Boyd poured out of the club like bees sallying forth to defend the hive. Around the corner of the building they raced, eager to detect the enemy. Prompt as they had been, however, they were too late. The night was very dark; there was much shrubbery about, which, even in its leafless state, afforded cover. The stone-thrower was gone. The boys could not detect a darker shadow betraying his whereabouts, and there was no sound of fleeing feet.
Sam and Poke turned to the right, and the others to the left, spreading out as they neared the barn. The course taken by Sam and his comrade led toward the house, round which they worked their way as rapidly as possible. Strain their eyes as they might, they saw nothing to arouse suspicion; nor were they better rewarded when they moved to the street, and peered up and down road and sidewalk.
“Clean get-away,” Poke said reluctantly. “Fellow must have bolted just as soon as he let drive. And it must have been the chap the Shark saw at the window, of course. What a pity he hasn’t a decent pair of eyes!”
“It’s the biggest kind of a pity,” Sam agreed. “This affair is no joke, Poke. If that stone had struck one of us—whew!”
Poke laid a hand on Sam’s arm. “Come now!” He dropped his voice almost to a whisper. “Fellow who threw that stone was pretty savage, or crazy, or—or revengeful. And—and you won’t need maps or foot-notes to understand who I reckon he is.”
“I wouldn’t ask but one guess,” said Sam.
Poke was silent for a moment, listening intently. “The others have had no better luck than we,” he reported. “Might as well go back, I suppose.”
“All right,” Sam agreed, and they moved toward the club-house.
Meanwhile the Shark, who had picked himself up from the floor and found that he was none the worse for his upset, had been making an investigation on his own account. First, he raised the big stone, shifting it meditatively from one hand to the other, as if he were estimating its weight. Then he crossed to the window and measured the height from the floor of the jagged hole in the glass. This done, he furrowed his brow, pulled out pencil and note-book from his pockets, and fell to making a calculation of some sort. He was still engaged in this when Sam and Poke entered.
“No luck!” Poke informed him. “The fellow got away.”