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Page 66
But he and Tom finally reached the seldom-used road which ran
along the field that contained the lonely shack, and, following
this, they reached a farmhouse about a mile farther on. Greatly
to their relief, there was a telephone in the place. True it was
only a party line, set up by some neighboring farmers for their
own private use, but one of the subscribers, to whose home the
private line ran, had a long distance instrument, and after a
talk with him, this man promised Tom to call up Mr. Swift and
acquaint him with the fact that his son and Jackson were all
right, and would be home later.
"And now," said Tom, after thanking their temporary host, a
farmer named Bloise, "can you tell us anything about an old cabin
that stands back there?" and he indicated the location of the
mysterious shack.
"Well, yes, I can tell you a little about it, but not very
much," said Mr. Bloise. "It was built, some years ago, by a rich
New Yorker, who bought up a lot of land around here for a game
preserve. But it didn't pan out. This cabin was only the start of
what he was going to call a 'hunting lodge,' I believe it was.
There was to be a big building on the same order, but it never
was built.
"Some say the fellow lost all his money in Wall Street, and
others say the state wouldn't let him make a game preserve here.
However it was, the thing petered out, and the old shack hasn't
been used since."
"Oh, yes, it has!" exclaimed Tom. "We just came from there, and
there are signs which show some one has been sleeping there and
eating there."
"There has!" exclaimed the farmer. "Well, I didn't know that."
"I did," said his son, a young man about Tom's age. "I meant to
speak of it the other day. I saw an automobile turn into the old
road that the men used when they built the shack. I thought it
was kind of queer to see a touring car turn in there, and I meant
to speak of it, but I forgot. Yes, some one has been at the old
cabin lately."
"Do you know who they are?" asked Tom eagerly. "We are looking
for a Mr. Nestor, who disappeared mysteriously about two weeks
ago, and I just found his wallet there in the shack!"
"You did!" exclaimed Mr. Bloise. "That's queer! You relatives
of this Mr. Nestor?" he asked.
"Not exactly," Tom answered. "Just very close friends."
"Well, it's too bad about his being missing in that way," went
on the farmer. "I read about it in the paper, but I never
suspected he was around here."
"Oh, we're not sure that he was," said Tom quickly. "Finding
his wallet doesn't prove that," and he told the story of his own
and Jackson's appearance on the scene, to the no small wonder of
the farmer and his family. Tom said nothing about the finding of
the files, nor the evidence he deduced from them. That was
another matter to be taken up later.
"Who were in the auto you saw?" asked Tom of the farmer's son.
"Was Mr. Nestor in the car?"
"I couldn't be sure of that. There were two men in the machine,
and they were both strangers to me. They were talking together,
pretty earnestly, it seemed to me."
"One did not appear as if he was being taken away against his
will, did he?" asked Tom.
"No, I can't say that he did," was the answers "They looked to
me, and acted like, business men looking over land, or something
like that. They just turned in on the road that leads to the old
hunting cabin, as we call it around here, and didn't pay any
attention to me. Then I forgot all about them."
"Neither of them could have been Mr. Nestor," decided Tom. "At
least it doesn't seem as if he'd talk at all companionably to a
man who had treated him as we think Mr. Nestor has been treated.
I guess that clew isn't going to amount to much."
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