To the door of this shanty a broad-shouldered, rough-looking and powerful fellow of forty had just come.  The man, who was poorly clad, wore brogans, and held in his right hand a weighty, ugly-looking club.  The fellow was smoking a short-stemmed pipe, and now stood, with his left hand shading his eyes, peering off at the surrounding landscape.

Dick and Dave hugged the ground more closely behind their screen of bushes.

“It’s all right, Bill,” announced the lookout in the doorway.

“’Course this,” growled a voice from the inside.  “Too far from the main line o’ travel for anyone to be spying around.  Besides, no one guesses-----”

“Well, you can go to sleep if ye wanter, Bill.  I’m goin’ ter sit up and smoke.”

With that the brogan-shod man disappeared inside the shanty.  Dick and Dave glanced at each other with eager interest.

“I wonder whether they have Mr. Dodge in there with them?” breathed Dick, in his ear.

“If Mr. Dodge is in there he’s keeping amazingly quiet,” Darrin responded doubtingly.

“Within a very few minutes,” Prescott rejoined, “I’m going to know whether Mr. Dodge is in that shanty.”

“We found his footprint close enough near here,” argued Dave.

“Yes, and I feel sure enough that Mr. Dodge is there.  But why don’t we hear something from him?  The whole business is so uncanny that it gives one that creepy feeling.”

For a full quarter of an hour the two chums remained hidden, barely stirring.  From the shanty, at first, came crooning tones, as though the man in brogans were humming over old songs to himself.  Occasionally there was a snore; evidently Bill was drowsing the day away.

“Now, I’m going down there,” whispered Dick.

“Look out the big fellow doesn’t catch you,” warned Darrin.  “I’ve an idea he’d beat you to a pulp if he caught you.”

“I’m not as big as he is,” admitted Dick, grinning, “but I think I might prove as fast as he on my feet.”

As Prescott started to steal down into the hollow Dave reached about him, gathering all the fair-sized stones within reach.

“If Dick has to come from there on the rim,” soliloquized Darrin, “a few stones hurled at the face of that ugly-looking customer might hold him back for a while.  And I used to be called a pretty fair pitcher!”

Prescott, in the meantime, was stealing around the shanty, applying his eyes to some tiny cracks.

At last he turned, making straight and cautiously up the slope.

As he came near, Dick sent Dave a signal that made that latter youth throb with expectancy.

“Yes!  We’ve found Theodore Dodge!” whispered young Prescott eagerly.  “He’s in there, lying on the floor, bound and gagged.”

“Whew!  And what is Mr. Brogans doing?”

“Sitting on the floors smoking and playing solitaire with a dirty pack of cards.  The other rascal, Bill, is sleeping at a great rate.”