The trained eye might have detected the faintest suspicion of light near the opening overhead, but it was faint indeed.
"They keep together," added Fred to himself, as he distinguished the soft, stealthy tread over the ground.

"I should think they would separate, and they would be the more likely to find the place between them; but they want to be together when they run against Mickey, I guess." The shadowy footsteps were not regular.

Occasionally they paused, and then they hurried on again, and then they settled down into the stealthiest kind of movement.

The lad, it is true, had the newly found revolver, with several of its chambers loaded, at his command.

There was some doubt, however, whether it could be relied upon, owing to the probable length of time that had elapsed since the charges were placed there.
As a precaution, Mickey O'Rooney had placed new caps upon the tubes, but had chosen to leave the charges themselves undisturbed.