carrying on her
task of putting up preserves in the kitchen, for once more she called to
Sallie to come and lend a hand for a few moments.

This left the two boys alone again, and gave them a chance for
exchanging views, which they were not slow to do.

"I guess he doesn't keep it around here, in this room, or anywhere close
by," was Andy's first remark.

Frank chuckled on hearing this.

"Oh! I see that you've got your mind set on recovering what was taken
from the bank. You're a mercenary fellow, Andy. But, then, since our
fathers have more or less interest in the same bank, which is going to
be mighty badly crippled if the cash and securities are not recovered
sooner or later, why, I can't blame you much. I'd like to run across the
loot myself, more than I can tell you."

"I'm only afraid that if the men are taken prisoners to night, when they
come to clean out the pay-car after it arrives in Bloomsbury, they'll
not have this other stuff with them, and will refuse to tell where it's
hidden. That will be just as bad for the bank as if they'd got away to
Canada with the swag, as the Chief calls it. I wish I knew how we could
track this Casper Blue to where the other yegg is hiding near the
biplane, and watch them until we saw where they had the cache. After
that we could just hang around, and when they started in a power-boat
perhaps for Bloomsbury, with Todd Pemberton at the wheel, we could do
something to make the biplane useless to them, and then toward evening
put for home ourselves."

Frank listened while the other ran all of this off, and evidently he was
more or less amused at what he heard.

"It's plain to be seen that you've been doing some tall thinking and
planning all this while, Andy," he remarked.

"But you'll admit, I guess, that if there was any way to carry out my
scheme, it would be a jim dandy idea," the other persisted.

"Of course; but that's where the trouble lies. Even if Casper did come
back, we never could track him through the woods and around the swamps
without his sooner or later discovering that he was being followed,
because we're not clever at that sort of thing. And once he got wind of
our being after him, chances are he'd lay some trap with his mate, into
which both of us would tumble headlong."

Andy scratched his head, and a look of doubt came upon his face.

"H'm! I wouldn't like that one little bit, and that's a fact, Frank," he
admitted, candidly. "If we fell into their