It was just a quarter to nine when they turned off the main road into the woods road. It was very rough and Captain Jim had to drive very carefully. He followed the road for about a quarter of a mile and then turned off between two big trees and ran the car into a thick of small pines.  
“There, I don’t believe anybody will be apt to see her there,” he declared.
 
They had to wait about forty minutes before the other car arrived.
 
“Everything all right?” the Captain asked after the second car was well hidden.
 
“Slick as grease,” the man who had driven the car assured him. “We only passed two cars all the way up after leaving the city.”
 
The packs had already been made up and they lost no time in getting off.
 
“Sure you can find your way from here, Bob?” the Captain asked as they started off side by side, the others bringing up the rear.
 
“I think so.”
 
“Well, if you can you’re a good one at it.”
 
At this point the forest was very and the going rough. Bob had nothing but his sense of direction to guide him, and it must be confessed, he was a little worried for fear he might go astray.
 
Twice he stopped and climbed a tall tree to make sure that he was on the right track.
 
“Sure you’re right?” the Captain asked as he jumped to the ground the last time.
 
“Pretty sure, sir. I think we’ll hit the border line in about a half a mile and then it’ll be clear sailing so far as getting lost is concerned.”
 
“We’re all right now,” he declared a little later. “Here’s the place where we saw, or thought we saw, that cabin.”
 
“It don’t look as though there had ever been a cabin here,” the Captain said as he glanced around.
 
“I know it and that’s the queer part of it.”
 
A little farther on they stopped for dinner and while one of the men was getting the meal ready, Bob, at the Captain’s request, told the others all about the vanishing cabins.
 
“Any of you fellows ever hear anything of the kind?” the Captain asked as soon as he had finished.
 
None of them had and Bob fancied that he saw one of them at another.
 
“Can’t blame them for not believing it,” he told himself as he felt the hot blood rising to his face.
 
They pushed on during the afternoon making as good time as possible for the Captain was anxious to reach their destination as early the following day as they could.
 
“We might just miss them and have to wait nearly or quite a week before they’d make another trip,” he explained.
 
They made camp that night not far from where Bob had been caught in the trap and he told the Captain that they ought to get to the end of the journey not much later than noon the next day.
 
“That’ll be fine. Several hours earlier than I expected.”
 
“We have made good time,” Bob agreed.
 
After the supper dishes had been cleaned up the Captain asked Bob to again describe the small man whom he believed to be the leader of the gang of smugglers.
 
“Any of you place him?” he asked after Bob had finished.
 
“Did you notice whether or not he was bald?” one of the men asked.
 
“No, he had his hat on every time I saw him,” Bob replied.
 
“Well, I’m not sartin’ but that description fits Hi Stone pretty well,” the man said.
 
“Who’s Hi Stone?” the Captain asked.
 
“Lives about two miles this side of the Forks. Don’t know much about him. He’s only been in these parts about a year or a year and a half.”
 
“Any reason for thinking he might be in the business?”
 
“Only that he always seems to be pretty well supplied with money and never appears to have to work much. I got a cousin lives about a mile the other side of him and he told me about him. I never saw him more than two or three times.”
 
“Then you don’t know anything actually against him?”
 
“No, not a thing except what I’ve told you.”
 
“Well, I guess we couldn’t jail him for that,” the Captain smiled, “but it’s worth knowing.”
 
“I don’t think it’s much over an hour from here,” Bob told the captain when they stopped for lunch the following day.
 
Although they had kept a sharp watch they had neither heard or seen a soul since entering the forest.
 
But it was a little farther than Bob thought and it was nearly two o’clock when he stopped and announced that the big field was just ahead.
 
“Suppose we wait here while you go on and see if there’s anyone in sight,” the Captain said.
 
Bob crept silently forward and in a few minutes was once more between the two big rocks. Eagerly he parted the bushes and peeped out. Not a soul in sight and he noticed that no smoke came from the chimney.
 
“Guess there’s no one at home,” he thought as he drew back his head.
 
He hurried back to where he had left the rest of the party and made his report to the Captain.
 
“Then the thing for us to do is to find a good place to camp where they won’t be likely to find us and wait.”
 
They searched through the woods for some time before finding a place which suited their needs but at last they on a spot about an eighth of a mile from the edge of the field. It was in a thick clump of pines and all agreed that there would be little likelihood of discovery unless someone should stumble upon them by accident.
 
“Suppose you go back and stand the first watch,” the Captain proposed to Bob, “while we are getting things shipshape. I’ll send a man to relieve you in a couple of hours.”
 
Stretched at full length between the two rocks Bob had hard work to keep awake, and was very glad when one of the men crept up and told him that he was to go back to camp.
 
“Haven’t seen anything I suppose,” he said.
 
“Not a thing.”
 
“Well, I hope they show up before long. Hanged if I like this waiting game.”
 
When he got back to camp Bob found that they had, by sawing down three or four small pines and sticking the trees up between others, left a circular space about twelve feet across so thickly in that they would be invisible to anyone on the outside.
 
“You certainly have made it good and snug,” he told the Captain.
 
“I guess we’ll be fairly safe here,” Captain Jim replied with a smile.
 
They had brought no tents with them having decided that it would be too . But they were all more or less used to sleeping in the open. The men were busy spruce for beds and in a short time Bob had his own ready.
 
“Now I guess there’s nothing to do but wait,” he said to the Captain.
 
“That’s about all I guess. Let’s hope it won’t be a long one.”
 
“It can’t be any too short to suit me,” Bob declared.
 
“Well, I have found that there’s a lot of waiting to do in this game,” the Captain said.
 
“How do you think the men would like a mess of for supper?” Bob asked.
 
“Fine. Think you can get some?”
 
“I’m pretty sure of it. There’s a little a short piece back and unless I’m greatly mistaken there’s trout in it.”
 
“All right. Go to it only don’t get lost. I guess though that’s a fool thing to say to you,” the Captain added with a laugh.
 
Bob was gone about an hour and when he returned he had twenty fine brook trout averaging about a half a pound.
 
“Bully for you, son,” cried one of the men. “Those will go fine for supper.”
 
After supper they sat around and told stories until the Captain declared that it was time for taps. They had decided that it would be useless to keep a watch after dark.
 
“That machine won’t come in the night even if the others do,” the Captain had said and all agreed with him.
 
For two long days they took turns of two hours watching at the peep hole between the two rocks and nothing had happened.
 
“This sure is getting monotonous,” the Captain complained to Bob as he relieved him about four o’clock in the afternoon of the third day. “If they don’t come today or tomorrow I’m afraid the men will begin to get uneasy and want to give it up for a bad job, and I can’t say as I’d blame them much. It sure is beginning to get on my nerves.”
 
Two or three times each day Bob had called on the pocket phone and they had enjoyed long talks together. The phones were working and Captain Brice told Jack that he considered it one of the most wonderful inventions he had ever seen.
 
“I guess you aren’t the only ones who are getting tired of this waiting game,” Jack said when Bob told him what Captain Jim had said a few minutes earlier. “Mebby you think it’s fun waiting around this old farm with nothing to do from morning till night except eat.”
 
“Well, you have always seemed to enjoy that all right,” Bob laughed. “How are they feeding you there?”
 
“Wonderful. Best eats I ever had,” Jack replied. “But I do wish they would come.”
 
“And you aren’t the only one who wishes it,” Bob laughed as he bade him good-bye.
 
The following day, some time during the afternoon, Bob, who had been on watch since two o’clock and it was nearly time for him to be relieved, peeped out through the bush, he saw a thin whisp of smoke coming from the chimney of the cabin.
 
“That’s funny,” he thought “I didn’t hear anybody come up the trail. Wonder if I’ve been asleep and didn’t know it.”
 
A moment’s thought, however, convinced him that it was not at all likely, for he had not been at all sleepy.
 
“They must have come in from the other side,” he concluded as he kept his eyes on the cabin.
 
In a few minutes he saw the door open and the man whom he knew as Big Tiny stepped out, followed by Pierre. For some moments the two men stood at the door talking earnestly together. Bob noticed that not once did they look upward.
 
“Evidently they’re not expecting the flyer today,” he thought.
 
He watched until the men went back into the house and then hastened to report to the Captain.
 
“Good,” the Captain declared and all the men were greatly pleased to know that there was the of speedy action.
 
“How many of them are there?”
 
“I only saw two but I imagine the rest of them are not far off.”
 
“Now I suppose that airship will show up before long.”
 
“Probably but I hardly think he will come today,” and Bob explained his reason for thinking as he did. “When you see them come out of the cabin and look all around every few minutes you can know that they’re expecting him.”
 
“Well, I don’t think there will be any need of keeping a watch all the time now,” the Captain said. “You see there’s nothing we can do till he comes and in this clear air I imagine we can............