"Yell 'Help!' you idiot!"

"Oh, all right." They raised their voices together in a loud appealing shout. Then they listened. Not a sound answered them.

"Once more," said Clint. Again they shouted and again they listened.

Deep silence, broken only by the chirping of crickets.

"No good, I guess," said Clint despondently.

"n.o.body home," murmured Amy. "Now what? I'll tell you frankly, as man to man, that I can't go on walking all night, Clint. I'm dog-tired and my left leg's got a cramp in it and I'm weak with hunger. Let's find a cosy corner somewhere and go to sleep."

"I reckon we'll have to. I'm about all in, too. We'd better find a place where there's more shelter than there is here, though. Gee, but we are certainly a fine pair of idiots!"

"We are indeed!" a.s.sented Amy with enthusiasm. "I suppose that the time will come, perhaps twenty or thirty years from now, when we'll be able to look back on this night's jolly adventures and appreciate all the fun we're having, but just now--" Amy's voice trailed off into silence.

"Jolly adventures!" grunted Clint. "Don't talk rot!"

Five minutes later they stopped. That is, Clint stopped and Amy ran into him with a grunt.

"I suppose you haven't got a match, have you?" asked Clint.

"Right-o! You're a fine little supposer," chattered Amy.

"There's something here and I want to see what it is," said Clint. As he spoke he moved forward a step or two and felt around in the darkness.

"It feels like a fence," he muttered, "a board fence. No, it isn't, it's a house! Here's a window."

"A hole, I'd call it," said Amy. "Let's find the door."

They moved to the right, following the building, and promptly collided with a tree. They had to go around that, since there was no room to squeeze past it. Then the hut, for it was evidently no more, presented a doorway, with a door half-open on broken hinges. They hesitated a moment.

"Wonder what's inside," said Clint in a low voice.

"Spooks," suggested Amy, none too bravely.

"Shut up! Would you go in?"

"Sure, I would. Come on."

Very cautiously they edged past the crazy door, their hands stretched warily ahead. There was a sudden scurrying sound from the darkness and they jumped back and held their breaths.

"P-probably a rat," whispered Amy.

"Or a squirrel," said Clint. They listened. All was silent again. A damp and musty odour pervaded the place. Under their feet the floor boards had rotted and as they made a cautious circuit of the interior they trod as often on soil as on wood. The hut was apparently empty of everything save a section of rusted stovepipe, dangling from a hole in the roof, some damp rags and paper in a corner and a broken box. Clint discovered the box by falling over it with a noise that sent Amy a foot off the ground. When all was said the advantages presented by the hut were few.

It did protect them from the little chill breeze that stirred and it put a roof over their heads, although, as Clint said, if it rained before morning they'd probably find the roof of little account. On the other hand, it was damper than the outdoors and the mustiness was far from fragrant. They decided, however, to take up their quarters there until morning. Looking for the road was evidently quite useless, and, anyway, they were much too tired to tramp any longer. They found a place away from door and window where some of the floor-boards still survived and sank down with their backs to the wall. Amy heaved a great sigh of relief.

"Gee," he muttered, "this is fine!"

"Pull the blanket up," murmured Clint with a pathetic effort at humour.

Amy chuckled weakly.

"I can't reach it," he said. "Guess it's on the floor. Anyway, the night air is very beneficial."

"Could you eat anything if you had it, Amy?"

"Shut up, for the love of Mike! I could eat a kitchen range. Clint, did I cast any aspersions awhile ago on cold lamb?"

"Uh-huh," said the other faintly.

"I was afraid so. I wish I hadn't now. A great, big platter of cold lamb would--would--Oh, say, I could love it to death! Gee, but I'm tired! And sleepy, too. Aren't you?"

Clint's response was a long, contented snore. Amy grunted. "I see you're not," he murmured. "Well--" He pushed himself a little closer to Clint for warmth and closed his eyes.

Many times they stirred and muttered and reached for bedclothes that were not there, but I doubt if either of them once really fully awoke until a sudden glare of light illumined the hut and flashed on their closed eyelids.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Now and then they spoke, but so softly that the boys could not hear what was said]

CHAPTER VIII

THE MYSTERIOUS AUTO

They awoke then, alarmed and confused, and stared with sleepy eyes at the white radiance which, entering door and window, showed with startling detail the bare walls of their refuge. Even as they looked the light vanished and, by contrast, the darkness seemed blacker than ever.

"Awake, Amy?" whispered Clint.

"Yes. Say, what the d.i.c.kens was that?"

"I don't know. Listen!"

From somewhere not far away came the steady purring of a motor car.

Their minds didn't work very quickly yet, and it was fully a minute before Clint exclaimed: "An auto! Then we must be near the road!"

He scrambled to his feet and crept, unsteadily because of chilled limbs, to the doorway. Amy followed. At first there was nothing to be seen. The night was still cloudy. But the sound of the running motor reached them distinctly, and, after a minute of strained peering into the darkness, they made out a line of trees against the sky. Apparently there was a road between them and the trees and the automobile was in the road. But no lights showed from it.

"Do you suppose," whispered Amy, "it's that fellow looking for us?"

"No, but maybe, whoever it is, he will give us--"

Clint's whisper stopped abruptly. A light flashed a few yards away, such an illumination as might be from a pocket electric lamp, and a voice broke the stillness. Clint grasped Amy's arm, warning to silence.

Footsteps crossed the ground toward the hut.

Again the light flashed, but this time its rays were directed toward the ground and showed two pairs of legs and something that looked like a stout stick. Then it went out again and the footsteps stopped. The two men, whoever they were and whatever they were doing, remained some twenty feet from the watchers at the door. Now and then they spoke, but so softly that the boys could not hear what was said. Neither could they determine what the other sound was that reached them. It seemed almost as though the men were scuffing about the ground, and the absurd notion that they had lost something and were seeking it occurred to both. But to look for anything in the dark when there was a light at hand was too silly, and that explanation was discarded. For fully ten minutes--it seemed much longer to the shivering pair in the doorway--the motor chugged and the men continued their mysterious occupation. Amy's teeth were chattering so that Clint squeezed his arm again. Then the light again flashed, swept the ground for an instant and was as suddenly shut off, and the footsteps retreated.

The boys eased their cramped positions. A minute pa.s.sed. Then they leaped aside from the doorway, for the flood of white light from the car was again illumining the hut and the engine was humming loudly. A moment of suspense, and the light swept past them, moved to the right, fell on a line of bushes and trees, turned back a little and bored a long hole in the darkness at the bottom of which stretched a roadway. And then, with a final sputter of racing engine and a grind of gears, the car sprang away up the road, the light dimmed and blackness fell again. The chugging of the auto diminished and died in the distance. Amy arose stiffly from where he had thrown himself out of the light.

"Now, what the d.i.c.kens?" he demanded puzzledly.

"I can't imagine," replied Clint. "And I don't much care. What gets me is why we didn't speak to them!"