"It's through the woods," d.i.c.k continued. "I warn you that you'll find some of it rough going."

"Then I don't know about it," Greg replied with fine irony. "We fellows are not very well used to the woods."

"It's twenty minutes of six," declared Dan, glancing at his watch.

"Some of us are in danger of eating nothing but cold potatoes tonight if we don't get over the ground faster. Find the short cut, d.i.c.k."

"It starts down here, just a little way," Prescott answered.

"I'll turn in when we come to the right place."

d.i.c.k and Darrin were now walking side by side in advance. Right behind them came Greg and Dan, while Tom and Harry, paired, brought up the rear.

"In this way," called d.i.c.k, turning sharply to the left and going in under an archway of trees. It was over velvety gra.s.s that he led his chums at first. After something like an eighth of a mile the Grammar School boys came to deeper woods, where they had to thrust branches aside in making their way through the tangle.

"My Sunday suit will look like a hand-me-down by the time I get home," muttered Greg Holmes.

"It does now," Dave called back to him consolingly.

"We suspected that Darry's grouch was due to dyspepsia," laughed Holmes. "Now I am sure of it. David, little giant, take my advice---fast to-night."

"I will, if the rest of you fellows will," challenged Darrin quickly.

"The truth is out," Tom burst out laughing. "Darry, by that slip of the tongue you admitted that you've been eating too much and that you're all out of sorts."

Dave did not deny. He merely snorted, from which sign of defiance his chums could gain no information.

They had gone another quarter of a mile through the woods when d.i.c.k, now alone in the lead, suddenly halted, holding up one hand as a signal to halt, while he rested the fingers of his other hand over his lips as a command for silence.

"What is it?" whispered Darrin, stepping close.

"Fred Ripley, Bert Dodge and some of their fellows," d.i.c.k whispered, at the same time pointing through the leaves.

"Well, we don't have to halt, just because they're around," retorted Darrin, snorting. "If they try to pick any trouble with us we can give 'em as good as they send. We've done it once or twice already."

"But we don't want to go to fighting on Sunday, if there's any way to avoid it," young Prescott urged, at which four of his chums nodded their heads approvingly.

"I'm not looking for any fight, either," muttered Dave. "Yet it goes against the grain to halt just in order to let that gang slip by without seeing us."

"There are five of us against your single vote, Darry," d.i.c.k reminded him. "Let us have our way."

"Well, we don't need to skulk, do we?" queried Dave.

"Oh, no," d.i.c.k a.s.sured him. "All we will do is to keep quiet and not bring on a fight with that tough lot."

"Huh!" muttered Darrin, as though he could not see the difference between that and skulking.

Presently, after holding a hand behind him to signal silence and stealth, Prescott started on in the lead. He wanted, if possible, to see just where Ripley, Dodge and their crowd went, so that the Grammar School boys would not run too suddenly into them.

The "Co." trailed on in Indian file behind their leader.

Finally d.i.c.k halted again, his chums crowding on his heels. They looked out into a clearing beyond. There, amid trees, stood a small three-room house, looking still quite new in its trim paint, though the building had stood there idle for some five years.

At one time the city had planned a new reservoir site on a hill just above, and this little cottage had been intended for the reservoir tender. Then a better site for the reservoir had been found, and, to date, the cottage had not been removed.

"Ripley and his crew went around that cottage to the door side,"

d.i.c.k whispered.

"Are they in the cottage?" Dave demanded.

"I don't know. They went around to the other side. Let's wait and see if we can guess what's up."

So, forgetful of their suppers for the time being, d.i.c.k & Co.

waited, screened by the bushes.

"There's smoke coming up out of the chimney," whispered Tom Reade.

"Yes," nodded d.i.c.k. "I had just noticed that. I'm wondering what it can mean. No one has any right to break into the cottage."

"Fred Ripley and Bert Dodge, because they have a lawyer and a bank officer for fathers, don't feel that they need any rights when they want to do a thing," muttered Darrin resent fully.

It was impossible to see what might be going on inside the cottage, for the simple reason that all of the windows were shuttered tightly.

"Let's go ahead," begged Dave, after a few more moments spent in idle watching. "I want to know why that crowd has broken into the cottage."

Truth to tell, even the leader of d.i.c.k & Co., usually very discreet, felt himself a victim of curiosity.

"Shall we try to find out the secret, fellows?" Prescott inquired.

"That's just what we ought to do," responded Greg. "Especially as Ripley and Dodge have always been so mean to us."

d.i.c.k went forward, with his best imitation of the way he imagined an Indian scout would approach a strange house. Greg and Dan were at his heels, while Dave and Harry went around the other side of the cottage, Tom remaining well to the rear to watch.

Some low, vague sounds came from within the cottage. These were not such noises as scurrying rats would make, so the boys were quick to conclude that human beings were moving inside.

But what could possibly be going on? The noises that the Grammar School boys heard were hard to cla.s.sify.

At last d.i.c.k and Dave met before the door of the little cottage.

Nor were they much surprised at finding that the door of the cottage stood perhaps a half an inch ajar.

This, however, did not furnish light enough to give a glimpse of what was happening inside.

"Two or three of us may as well slip inside, eh?" whispered Dave to d.i.c.k.

"Wait! Listen!" counseled Prescott. "We don't want to please that crowd by stepping right into a trap. And I've an idea that by this time they must know that we're around here."

"If they knew, they'd be out here making faces at us," retorted Darrin wisely.

"And ordering us to get off the earth," supplemented Greg, in a whisper.

"Listen," whispered d.i.c.k. "Perhaps we can guess what they're doing."

"I can guess what they're doing," murmured Reade, who had now moved around to the front with his chums. "I've been watching the smoke of that fire come up through the chimney. Humph! I don't believe Rip and Dodge are doing anything worse than a little camping. There must be a stove in there, and they're cooking some supper---playing at camping out."