"Glory! this here place is some on thrills," grumbled Tom Somers.

"Never mind the things that are dead and gone. We have more to fear from those that are living. It looks as though the tramps have taken up their quarters in the deserted shack of the old hermit, doesn't it, Tom?"

asked Frank, in the ear of the other.

"It sure does, for a fact. Like as not the whole outfit is quartered there right now. And somehow I got a suspicion that our grub meandered this way, too. Seems like I see a familiar Boston baked-bean can lying there by the door, where they hustled it out after eating the contents."

Frank made no reply to this insinuation. Whatever he thought he kept to himself.

"Oh! I wonder is Jerry there?" said Bluff, longingly, but managing to keep his tones lowered.

"That is something we mean to discover before a great while. I leave the manner of our approach entirely to Tom here," declared Frank.

The outcast from Pet's camp had proven his ability to be of great a.s.sistance to them, and Frank believed in encouraging a fellow. His words doubtless gave the other more or less satisfaction. When a boy feels that he is wholly trusted, he is very apt to do his level best.

"First of all I reckon there's a better way to crawl up close to the shack than this one we're on. So let's trail around to the other side, fellers," he said.

They succeeded in reaching the point he had in view. Even Bluff could see the wisdom of the move. The undergrowth was much more dense here, and extended quite up to the wall of the dilapidated cabin.

They could see that the new occupants had done some little rough tinkering in order to make a roof that would shed water reasonably well.

From this it was easy to conclude that Waddy Walsh and his partner did not know just how long they might have to utilize this place as a hide-out, and thought it best to be ready to stand a rainy siege such as the Spring was apt to produce at any day.

Frank felt Bluff clawing at his legs. There was something in the act to tell him his chum was desirous of speaking to him, and he allowed the other to pull up alongside so they could put their heads together.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Didn't you hear it?" queried Bluff, as if surprised.

"What? I heard nothing."

"All that whistling on the lake. Sounded to me like that little tug, _Rainy Day_, that tows the lumber down to the outlet. She was close by, too," replied Bluff.

"It must have been away off, for I didn't hear a bit of it. Perhaps it was the tug, too; but she belongs up at the other end of the lake. What could bring her down here?"

"I had an idea that perhaps the sheriff and his posse might be aboard her," ventured Bluff, and he was instantly seized by his comrade.

"That's just what it meant. I hope Will's met them and told how the land lies here. If that is true it means the beginning of the end?" whispered Frank.

"And perhaps we may be back in our good old camp by night time, who knows?" answered the other, joyfully.

Still, neither of them had the slightest thought of relaxing their efforts with regard to investigating the interior of that cabin, and ascertaining whether their comrade was being detained there against his will, perhaps in bonds, that cut his flesh cruelly.

Tom had noted the fact that the others were holding a little powwow, and hence he did not push on so as to leave them. In fact, Tom was not at all particular about quitting the society of these stout-hearted fellows even for a minute, while in such a ghostly neighborhood. Tom believed in spirits, and the story Bluff had told about that skeleton was ever before him.

When they began to advance once more, he also started off.

They were now so close to the cabin that if any one had been talking aloud inside those old moss-grown walls the boys could not have failed to hear the sounds.

There had been a window, but it was closed with a bunch of dead gra.s.s, and, of course, none of the boys thought of trying to remove this obstacle in connection with their obtaining a view of the interior. The only other opening, no doubt, was the door, which was allowed to remain wide open all the time for air and light.

Dare one of them crawl around the corner of the cabin and try to look in at that entrance? The risk seemed almost too much. Still, Frank remembered that they had two guns among them, while, so far as they knew, the hoboes possessed none; at least they had shown nothing of the sort thus far.

He had been thinking this over, however, and concluded that it hardly stood to reason that such desperate characters as these two, one an escaped reform school inmate and the other a yeggman tramp, would be entirely without some means of defence. Perhaps one of them might have a revolver which he had up to now kept out of sight for some reason.

Tom was pulling at Frank's trousers entreatingly. Catching his attention, he made a gesture with his hand, as talking was now out of the question.

Following the line of his pointing finger, Frank saw what had attracted the eye of the boy who had been West. Some animal had for a time used the hut as a lodging-place, and as the door at the time may have been closed, had dug a tunnel under the wall at the back of the place.

Possibly the men inside had filled the hole up beyond the wall, but they had paid no attention to that which lay beyond.

Frank caught the idea instantly. It was to begin to tunnel under the wall, drawing away the earth piecemeal until an opening was made, when one of them might crawl through and make discoveries.

The idea appealed to him somehow or other, and, handing his gun silently to Tom, he set to work lifting handfuls of loose dirt, and gradually scooping out quite a hole. It was easy work because the place had only recently been filled in. As he worked he wondered what sort of an animal had made the tunnel under the wall; perhaps a wildcat, or it might have been a 'c.o.o.n, hardly a bear, though such big game could be occasionally met with around Lake Camalot, especially along the headquarters of Lumber Run up at the other end of the body of water.

The minutes pa.s.sed in this way. Several times Frank caught some sound beyond the wall, but could not make out what it might mean. He felt positive, however, that it was the home of the hoboes he had reached, and not a hiding-place of that strange creature so like a gigantic ape, but which wore shoes like a man.

Now he felt the earth growing lighter, as though he might be coming close to an end of his strange task. He was still digging away, eager to learn whether his plan could be carried out, when without the slightest warning something that moved came in contact with his flesh, and he felt his fingers seized by a human hand!

CHAPTER XIX--HOLDING BLUFF IN

Frank involuntarily tried to draw his hand back.

The grasp of the unknown, however, was too strenuous, and he could not do so unless he created such a disturbance as must have aroused any sleeper nearby. Besides, a wild suspicion had flashed through his mind.

Perhaps this was his chum Jerry, trying to escape from his place of confinement.

He squeezed the fingers that clutched his. It was a sign manual used in the secret society to which both of them belonged in the Academy at Centerville. To his great delight the secret grip was returned immediately.

Then it _was_ Jerry! He was alive, and even at that moment endeavoring to get away from those who were holding him against his will!

Frank felt like shouting aloud, so great a sense of grat.i.tude swept over him; but fortunately he did not give way to such foolishness.

He put his head deep down into the hole he had made and whispered, making just the faintest sound possible:

"Jerry!"

"Frank!" came back like the sighing of the wind up in some of those lofty trees that overhung the lonely cabin with such a bad name.

Then the last doubt vanished. It only remained to get Jerry out of that place as soon as possible. Why, left to himself he seemed able to force his way to freedom, and with what aid they could extend surely only a few minutes would be needed to accomplish it.

Even as he thought thus, he felt his hand violently thrust back. At the same moment there was the sound of heavy voices in the cabin. Evidently one or both of the tramps must have entered the second room and discovered Jerry on his knees engaged in tunneling out.

There was no sound of a blow struck. Had there been, Frank could never have contained himself, but regardless of consequences must have rushed around to where the door lay, and burst into the place.

As it was, he backed away and joined his comrades, who, it can easily be understood, were more than curious to know what all this meant.

"Is he in there?" demanded Bluff, close to the ear of his chum.