“Hark!” exclaimed Dugan suddenly. “I hear voices—boys, too,” he went on, after a minute’s listening; “get behind that rock yonder. I’ll stop them and ask the time of day or something, and you make your appearance when you think you are needed.”
“All right, my honorable comrade,” chuckled the Jap, sliding like a gray-suited shadow toward the rock, and vanishing from view behind it.
On came the three unsuspecting boys, chatting and laughing, and little dreaming of what lay in store for them round the turn of the road. Dugan, an evil expression on his countenance, drew back a little, and then, as they drew closer, started forward.
“Got the time, young fellow?” he asked in a natural, easy tone, as the three lads came up to him.
“It’s the man we saw in the hut!” exclaimed Tubby, in a rather affrighted tone, but so low that Dugan did not hear him.
“Well, he can’t possibly know what we have been doing,” rejoined Rob, in an equally cautious voice. Thinking it best not to give the man even a slight excuse for suspicion, he drew out his watch.
“Thanks,” said Dugan, who all this time had been carefully sizing up the three lads. Rob he recognized by description as being the one who was likely to carry the plans of the equalizer.
“Phew!” he remarked to himself. “They’re three husky youngsters for fair. Glad I’ve got a revolver, or I might get the worst of it.”
The boys were starting on again when Dugan stepped back a pace or two and spread his immense bulk across their path.
“Hold on a minute, boys,” he said. “I’ve got something to say to you. You’ve been calling on Lieutenant Duvall.”
“We’ve been for a walk,” rejoined Rob boldly. “I don’t know who this Lieutenant Duvall is you’re talking about.”
“You don’t, eh, you young mucker?” Dugan had decided that his best chance lay in scaring the three lads. “Well, I do. Don’t try to lie to me.”
He contorted his face in hideous fashion. This was a trick he had found very successful in intimidating other persons he wished to bully or oppress. But in the three boys before him, as we know, Dugan was up against boys out of the ordinary run. Instead of being impressed, Rob simply took a step forward, turning to his chums and saying in a natural, unshaken voice.