Skippy ate because he was hungry, but his mind wasn't on it. He was too confused, too worried at the unexpected turn of events to think of anything else but what had happened and what might happen. Barker made him feel strangely hopeless about this adventure which he had set out upon so light heartedly and which Carlton Conne had seemed to plan so thoroughly. It now appeared that he who had planned on helping to trap Dean Devlin had himself been trapped in a larger web. That was it--he was _trapped_! He looked at the two kitchen windows. They were shuttered and barred like the windows in the other rooms. The door leading out of the kitchen opened onto a shed and Skippy was certain that that too was invulnerable both inside and out. Upstairs, he learned ten minutes later, were three stuffy bedrooms fit for occupation. He was assigned to one of them along with Nickie Fallon and Timmy. Shorty and Biff occupied the room next to them and across the hall was the room in which Barker and Frost alternately slept and watched to see that their young protégés did not triumph over locks and other man-made obstructions and steal forth into the night. "Ever since I been here, I been askin' myself--why the locks, if them two guys brought me here outa sympathy?" Timmy whispered to his new room-mates as Frost bade them a chuckling good-night and locked the door on the outside. He retreated to his tumbled looking cot and held his head in his hands wearily while he stared at the lantern hanging above his head. "Take it from me, guys, there's somethin' screwy about Barker an' Frost, an' you might's well get smarted up." Skippy looked at the decrepit bed in which he and Nickie were to sleep and his heart sank. There wasn't a breath of air save the occasional wisps of breeze that mysteriously found their way through the chinks in the shutters. He walked to the window and by stooping could look through the bars and see a rising moon casting a flickering gleam of light on water. "Is it a lake or somethin'?" he asked. "Lake, me eye!" Timmy answered. "It's a swamp, that's what. You'll see how much when the moon comes up good. There's only a little back yard an' then the swamp begins." "Say," Nickie whispered inquiringly, "you got somepin' on Barker an' Frost? What's the matter, anyways?" Timmy got up and walked over to Fallon. "They got me scared, that's what! Barker's terrible--he's got me scared skinny an' I'll tell you guys why!" He tiptoed to the door, listened a moment and then came back. "Did _he_ help you guys crash outa reform?" Nickie explained that they had not got that far before Barker had reached out a helping hand and gathered them in. While he was speaking they all moved toward the bed and sat down, there being no chairs in the room.