Page:Boy scouts in the White Mountains; the story of a long hike (IA boyscoutsinwhite00eato).pdf/115

 bushes, and then they dropped. While the car moved forward again, they wriggled hastily on their stomachs in among the dusty bushes, and lay there, not daring even to whisper, while the driver again reversed, and brought his car around facing back down the road up which they had just come. The two men were now close to the Scouts. They stopped the engine, and got out. One of them got out on the side toward the boys. Peanut could almost have stretched forth his hand and touched the burglar's foot.

But he stepped away, unconscious, and took something out of the tonneau of the car.

"Got the sacks?" the other asked.

"O. K.," said the first.

The two men moved up the road on foot, leaving the car behind, beside the road. Art held Peanut down till they were so far away that their footsteps were not audible. Then he sprang up.

"Quick!" he whispered, "take your hatchet and cut the tires. Don't chop and make a noise—draw the edge over."

"They'll explode," said Peanut.

"That's so. Wait—find the valves, and let the air out!"

The two boys worked rapidly, with matches. They let the air out of each tire, and then cut the rubber through, to make doubly sure.