bugs and whippoorwills."

When Wagg had driven along far enough so that the native could not
overhear, he hailed Vaniman through the trap in the top of the van.

"Did you hear that?"

"Yes."

"Is that Devilbrow within grabbing distance of what we're after?"

Vaniman returned a hearty affirmative. He had been able to see those
craggy heights from his window in Britt Block. The thought that what he
wanted to grab and what Mr. Wagg wanted to grab were not exactly mated
as desired objects did not shade his candor when he asserted that
Devilbrow was just the place from which to operate.

"All right!" chirruped Wagg. "Us for it!" He displayed the first
cheeriness he had shown on the trip. He whistled for a time. Then he
sang, over and over, to a tune of his own, "Up above the world so high,
like a di'mond in the sky." This display of Wagg's hopeful belief that
the fifty-fifty settlement was near at hand served to increase Vaniman's
despondency.

Obeying the native's instructions as to the route, Wagg soon turned off
the highway and drove along a rutted lane which whiplashed a slope that
continually became steeper. Soon he pulled up and told Vaniman to get
out and walk and ease the load on the horse. Wagg got down and walked,
too.

The trail up Devilbrow was on the side away from the village of Egypt.
The way was through hard growth. There were no houses--no sign of a
human being. Wagg's cheerfulness increased. And he said something which
put a glimmer of cheer into Vaniman's dark ponderings.

"There's no call to hurry the thing overmuch. If I recuperate too sudden
and show up back home it might look funny, after the way I bellowed
about my condition. There's plenty of flour, bacon, and canned stuff in
that van. I reckon we'd better get our feet well settled here and make
sure that nobody is watching us; the money is safer in the hole than
with us, for the time being. My pay is going on and the future looks
rosy."

A cock partridge rose from the side of the lane and whirred away through
the beech leaves that the first frost of early autumn had yellowed.

"And I've got a shotgun and plenty of shells! Son, let's forget that
we have ever been in state prison. In the course of time that place is
about as wearing on a guard as it is on a convict."

The log camp was behind a spur of the rocky summit and was hidden from
the village below. Wagg commented with satisfaction on the location when
they had reached the place.