Then the light again flashed, swept the ground for an instant and was as suddenly shut off, and the footsteps retreated.
The boys eased their cramped positions.

A minute passed.

Then they leaped aside from the doorway, for the flood of white light from the car was again illumining the hut and the engine was humming loudly.

A moment of suspense, and the light swept past them, moved to the right, fell on a line of bushes and trees, turned back a little and bored a long hole in the darkness at the bottom of which stretched a roadway.

And then, with a final sputter of racing engine and a grind of gears, the car sprang away up the road, the light dimmed and blackness fell again.