Skippy's thoughts were full of Dick Hallam and he dared to think there might be some hope in that direction. Might not Hallam guess that Devlin was holding him prisoner somewhere in the locality? Might not Carlton Conne send out his men to scour the countryside until they trailed down the forgotten house that lay in the fastnesses of Devil's Bog? "He's gotta!" Skippy said aloud. "Hah?" Nickie asked sleepily. "I was tellin' myself that sump'n's gotta come our way. That guy we passed--I know him. He'll use his head that we must be some place nearby an' he'll have a hunt started for us." "Yeah, but we're a coupla hours' ride from where the sawbones lives." "It's called Hillbriar--I seen it on a sign." "Yeah, and this place--_Devil's Bog_! That's a swell monicker all right. It's the right place for Devlin all right. If the _n_ was out an' the _i_ put before the _l_ they could call him The Devil of Devil's Bog, hah? Say, the more I think the worse headache I get about that doctor business. He ain't in on Devlin's racket, that's a cinch. If only Devlin didn't pack that rod, kid, we coulda spilled things. But he was watchin' us close, the dirty rat." "Yeah, an' I wasn't gonna take no chance neither. Gee whiz, Nickie, we're better off waitin' 'cause it's better bein' alive than go off the handle an' have maybe three of us dead. Then he coulda skipped out an' nobody woulda heard a shot." "Yeah, we didn't have no chance without gettin' blowed up. Even in the car, that rat wasn't missin' no tricks. A coupla times I was gonna give you a sign, 'cause I thought between us, we could land on him, but he had that silencer right in his mitt. He ain't got no feelin's, he makes me thinka rock with icy water tricklin' down it." "Did you notice anythin' just before we come to the creek, Nickie? I mean when he stopped an' got out with his flash?" Nickie lifted himself up on his elbow. "Say," he whispered, "them footsteps? Say, I was wonderin' too. What was in there that he was so nosey about, hah?" "Wish I knew, believe me. That path I betcha goes through the woods an' down to that bog. He said, didn't he, that the creek an' the bog both wound round that way, huh? Anyway, it's a cinch that he was down that path Saturday night. We seen mud on his feet an' tonight we could see his footsteps." "Then it looks like he took Timmy for ..." Nickie whispered fearfully. "I been thinkin' the same thing. Gee whiz, Nickie, it's awful, huh? He's like you say--a devil! We gotta be pretty foxy with a feller like that. He ain't afraida nothin', I don't think." "Yeah, an' don't think we can beat him to it. Lissen, kid, he's twice our size an' the gun he carries ain't no water pistol. It looks like if he don't get us one way, he'll get us the other. Kid, the only way we'll get a break is for your friends to round up the dicks an' come down here and surprise Devlin. An' how can that happen when they don't know...."