Merriwell did not get much pleasure out of it, however. The day was perfect, the birds fairly abundant, but his mind persisted in flying back to the farmhouse and the mystery it contained, decidedly to the detriment of his gunning. He kept wondering whether Jellison had returned to the house, and, if so, what he was doing there. Did Jellison know of the money under the hearth? What had taken Mac to the village? He was so preoccupied with all these questions that he made a number of wretched misses, and at last he broke his gun with a snap and slipped out the shells. “That’s about all for to-day,” he grumbled. “I can’t do a thing with this on my mind. I’m going back.” Now that he had at last come to this decision, he wished he had done so long ago. There was no telling what might be going on in the house by the lake. He was a fool to have come out at all and left the treasure unguarded. As he tore his way through the tangle of briars and undergrowth it seemed as if the very bushes were trying to hinder his progress. He could not get along fast enough, and the result was that when he emerged into the more open forest back of the house he was a mass of cuts and scratches and his hands were full of thorns. He did not stop for that, however, but kept on his way through the trees at a dogtrot. The woods were pleasantly free from undergrowth, and underfoot the soft, springy moss carpeted the ground as far as the eye could reach and made his progress almost noiseless. He had almost reached the cleared ground about the house—had just caught a glimpse of the bright sky line ahead, in fact—when he made out the figure of a man slipping through the trees in front of him. “Who the mischief is that?” he muttered, with a perplexed frown. It looked a little like Joblots, but he supposed that the dapper little fellow was by this time hundreds of miles away. At any rate, he was determined to find out, and, quickening his pace, he rapidly and noiselessly approached the fellow, whose back was toward him. A moment later he saw that it was Joblots. There was no mistaking the shape of the little fellow’s back and head, and certainly there could be no duplicate hereabouts of that giddy, gaudy, shiny, new khaki shooting rig. Percy evidently had some very definite object in view. He did not loiter as one enjoying the beauties of the forest, but pressed steadily forward toward the line of clearing, darting keen glances to right and left in a manner which was not at all like the absurd little creature they had come upon the day before. Moreover, his gun was nowhere to be seen. As he approached, swiftly and noiselessly, a conviction that this time he was watching the real man, came upon Dick with overwhelming force. The next moment, as he reached Joblots’ side and caught his arm, he was sure. The expression on the fellow’s face, startled and annoyed, but not in the least idiotic, was proof positive.