“What’ll we do, Blake?” was the whispered question.  
“Stay here, I guess. If we run they’ll see us or hear us. Besides, we haven’t done anything to run for.”
 
“I know it, but those men look like ugly customers. I wonder what they can be up to?”
 
“They are—” began Blake, and then he pulled Joe down beside him in the bushes.
 
“He’s turned off to one side,” Blake went on. “He hasn’t seen us, and he doesn’t know just where to look. He may pass us by. Keep still!”
 
Together they down. The man looked around as though to trace the noise which had been made when Joe accidentally stepped on a stick, which broke under his weight.
 
“Don’t breathe,” whispered Blake, with his lips close to Joe’s ear. “I think he’s going to pass us by.”
 
The man paused, seemed as if about to come directly for them again, and then dashed off to one side. He made a leap into the bushes, only to discover nothing, as his showed.
 
“I told you so!” one of his companions. “It was only the wind.”
 
“The wind doesn’t break sticks,” was the snappish reply.
 
“Then it was a bird—maybe a fishhawk.”
 
“Maybe,” the man who had started to make the search. “But I thought some one was spying on us, and if they were——” He did not finish, but glared angrily around. He was so close to the boys that they could hear his rapid breathing, but the leafy screen effectively hid them from view. “If I catch any one,” he went on, “he’ll wish he never ran across Danforth!” and he shook a big fist.
 
“Oh, come on!” called some of his companions. “There’s lots to be done yet before we get this lantern finished. And if we want any rich pickings we’ll have to for ’em. The weather looks like it was going to break, and that will be just what we want. Come on, Hemp.”
 
“All right, I will, only don’t talk so bold and free.”
 
“Why not?”
 
“Because some one might be spying and listening to us.”
 
“He’s got that on his mind yet,” laughed one of the men. “There’s no one around here.”
 
“And if they were, what could they pick up?” demanded another.
 
“That’s all right—it’s best to be careful,” said the one called Hemp Danforth. “I’m taking no chances. Some of us might—well, no telling what might happen to us if we was to be found out.”
 
“Don’t talk that way,” a tall, thin man. “It isn’t altogether cheerful—especially with what work we have on hand. Come on, now; let’s make this pillar a little higher, and the light will show better.”
 
“Say, what do you imagine they are doing?” whispered Joe. “It’s a queer game, Blake.”
 
“It sure is. I’ve about made up my mind what they are up to, and yet I may be wrong. Let’s wait here a while longer, and maybe we can pick up some information that will give us a better clue.”
 
The men were now engaged in heaping more stones on the pile where the lantern had set, and were making so much noise at it that the whispering of the boys could not be heard.
 
“Any special in view?” asked one of 130the men, after they had worked away for some time in silence.
 
“No, but there’ll sure be one along before long. We can count on that. Of course, we’ll have to keep the light going several nights, maybe, but it’ll be worth while.”
 
“It ought to fool ’em, all right,” went on Hemp Danforth. “If it hadn’t been that Nate Duncan tripped us up, and didn’t come across with that information we wanted, we wouldn&rs............