“Only try me,” came the eager reply. “Very well, I’ll pick you up on the way to the station.” The motor-car which Kenyon ordered was announced, and he and Austin had drawn on their overcoats when the little pugilist said: “I say, if you think you could use a guy of my tonnage, pal, why, just give the word.” “I wouldn’t think of trying to do without you,” replied Kenyon. “Come along.” XXII THE LIGHT GROWS STRONGER “The plans of men have various terminations.” --_The Strategy of Nunez._ THE little party left the train at South Norwalk; it was shortly after nine o’clock when they engaged a carry-all from a liveryman and began the journey along the road which the youth from Saginaw indicated. “Rather a dark night,” commented Webster. “Like ink,” replied Philip Austin. A lamp hung at each side of the trap, and they projected their struggling rays for a very short space ahead; the horses, with ears cocked, jogged briskly along. The road, when they had left the town well behind, grew lonely and still. The lines of rail fencing went wavering by in the lamp-light; trees by the wayside seemed vast and shadowy and full of strange murmurings; now and then, from far across the fields, they caught the flicker of a light in a farmhouse. At length after they had been on the road about a half hour or more, they heard a faint whistle. “This is the place where the Stalker met the other party,” whispered the pugilist. “I can tell it by the cross-roads.” Kenyon drew in the horses, and a man emerged from the shadows. He peered into the vehicle and seemed disappointed. “Excuse me,” said he. “I thought you were some friends of mine.” “Sort of a lonely place to wait, isn’t it,” asked Kenyon, examining the man keenly. “It’s not very lively,” returned he, rather surlily. “Going on to Cranberry?” “Beyond that,” answered Kenyon. He was about to drive on when the man suddenly placed his hand upon the shaft, as though struck by a thought. “Say,” said he, “did you have anybody walking ahead?” “No. Why?” The man ignored the question. “Did you see anyone on the road as you came along?” continued he. “No.” “It’s damned funny!” muttered the fellow, and with that he turned away and was lost in the darkness. Kenyon touched the horses with the whip; a little further on he remarked: “That would appear to be one of the men who arrived this morning, eh?” “It must be,” answered Webster. “And apparently he’s posted at the cross-roads as a sort of lookout.” “Did it strike you that he seemed a little bewildered?” asked Austin. “He’s ‘seeing things at night,’” put in the pugilist. “And when a guy begins to do that in a nice, dark, lonely place, it kind of gets him going.” “Someone probably passed along the road, and paid no attention to his signal, if he gave one,” suggested Kenyon.