Off among the trees to the eastward, near the road, a human being was stirring.
Reade rose, moving swiftly back more into the shadow.

Then he watched, every sense alert.

Yes; some one was moving, out there amid the trees.
What he could not see, Tom discovered by his acute sense of hearing.
"I'll put a hot pebble in that fellow's bonnet, whoever he is!" Tom muttered vengefully.

Entering the house, he left at the rear, then made a stealthy, roundabout trip that brought him at the farther edge of the litte grove of trees.
Now the young engineer crouched close to the ground as he listened.

Once more he heard that some one moving, not many yards away.