Page:Lynch Williams--The girl and the game.djvu/82

 even more stealthily. Ever and anon they might have been seen to pause, listening intently for a moment, only to resume their progress once more as though well assured that their suspicion was unfounded or their expectation unrealized….

They "might have been seen," but the chances are you couldn't have seen them. It was so infernally dark. The lamp posts were black long ago. Those fellows were not there to be seen. They were young Sophomores out on class business, about twenty of them in the gang.

When they reached a point near the edge of town they halted at a dark little lane that led off to the south between two large places with many thick trees in them. Here, after a little whispering, half of the gang sat down on the roadside in the shadow of the thick branches and lighted pipes. The rest of them picked their way on down through this mysterious-looking lane. The darkness was still more dark because the branches met overhead and shut out even the few stars of a very dark night. When they