Chick rightly inferred that they were all of one family, but he was too far away to hear what passed between them during the next hour. He continues to watch them until four o’clock, however, when Margate returned alone in the runabout. All sprang up to greet him, to which he put a speedy end by saying, so forcibly that Chick heard him distinctly: “Cut that out for something more important. I’ve set the ball rolling, and Nance knows just what to do. It’s up to us to do the rest. Get the lanterns, Zeke, you and Angus, and we’ll head for the Poplars. It will be dark in an hour, or a trifle more. The game might show up even earlier. We must be ready for her. I’ll get the documents, but we’ll leave the other plunder here. Be ready when I come out.” Margate hurried into the house with the last, not waiting for an answer. The two men addressed by name, evidently the father and brother of Tony Selig, hastened to the stable, from which they quickly emerged with three oil lanterns. They then returned to the house, from which the woman had in the meantime brought their coats and hats. “By Jove, this does look like something doing,” thought Chick, stealing into a thicket some fifty yards back of the house. “The Poplars, eh? I wonder where that is, or they, if it refers only to trees. I’ll come pretty near finding out, by gracious, also to what documents that rascal refers. I wonder which way they’ll head.” Chick had not long to wait, and it was not without misgivings that he saw the four men shape a course through the woods that took them within twenty feet of his concealment. They passed without seeing him, however, and he then proceeded to cautiously keep them in view. A tramp of half a mile through the woods brought into view another section of the road, also a large, old wooden house some fifty yards from the highway, with a stable and a long, open shed adjoining it, the whole shut in somewhat by a park of huge, old silver-leaf poplars, from which the house evidently derived its name. Chick saw at a glance, nevertheless, that, the house was unoccupied. The curtains or blinds of most of the windows were closely drawn. The stable doors were closed and padlocked, while the ground in the driveway and shed was running to rank grass. The character of the place also was apparent, and it afterward appeared that it had been closed by the authorities nearly a year before, and since had been unoccupied. “An old road house,” thought Chick, sizing it up. “It has been vacant for some time. But why have these rascals come here? Why is he taking a chance of breaking into the house? By Jove, I think I have it.” Margate, leading the way, was skillfully forcing open the back door of the deserted old road house.