Free The Forgotten Door by Alexander Key Page B

you’re doing.”
    Emma Pitts cried, “If you find them things in the woods, it’ll be because that wild varmint put ’em there! You’ve got a lot of nerve, Tom Bean, trying to blame it on Angus’ boys!”
    â€œThere’ll be fingerprints,” Thomas reminded her, and limped outside.
    Reluctantly, Anderson Bush got a flashlight from his car and they started across the pasture below the house. A mist was settling down from the ridge, making the night darker than it had been. After a hundred yards the deputy stopped.
    â€œMr. Bean,” he grated, “I’ve heard enough lies for one night. It would have been impossible to have seen anyone out here when we drove by. What kind of trick are you trying to pull?”
    Little Jon tugged at Thomas Bean’s sleeve. “Over there,” he said, pointing into the mist.
    The deputy swung his light, and Thomas called, “Tip! Lenny! Come here!”
    Two vague forms materialized in the beam of the light. They started to run, then halted as the deputy shouted. They came over slowly, two slender boys in soiled and patched jeans, with something secretive in their knobby faces that reminded Little Jon of Mrs. Macklin. Suddenly he felt sorry for Mrs. Macklin, and for Tip and Lenny.
    Anderson Bush demanded, “What are you boys doing out here?”
    â€œWe got a right to be here,” Tip, the taller one, said defiantly. “This here’s our land.”
    Thomas said, “You were coming from Johnson’s woods. Take us back the way you came.”
    â€œWhat for? We ain’t been over there.”
    â€œYou were seen over there. Get going!”
    â€œYou never seen us!” cried Lenny. “It musta been that wild boy.”
    Tip said, “We was coming back from the barn when we thought we seen something out here. Bet it was that wild boy!”
    â€œGet going!” Thomas Bean repeated. “Take us where you hid those things.”
    There were loud denials. Tip cried, “How you think we gonna find something in the dark we don’t know nothing about?”
    They were approaching the lower fence. Poplar thickets and brush loomed dimly on the other side. Anderson Bush began moving slowly along the fence, directing his light into the brush. Once Little Jon plucked silently at Thomas Bean’s sleeve and pointed. Thomas nodded, and whispered, “Wait. We don’t want this to look too easy.”
    They reached the corner near the road, and the deputy turned back. Now he crawled through the fence and very carefully began scuffling through the brush as he swung his light about. Thomas and Little Jon followed him, but Tip and Lenny stubbornly refused to leave the pasture.
    The mist settled lower, and presently it became so thick that the power of the light beam was lost after a few yards.
    Anderson Bush said, “It would take a hundred men to find anything out here tonight — if there’s anything to find.”
    â€œLet me have the light a minute,” said Thomas. “I thought I saw something gleam way over in yonder.”
    Thomas took the light, and guided by tugs of Little Jon’s hand on his sleeve, plunged deeper into the woods.
    Little Jon stopped suddenly before a clump of small cedars growing close to the ground. There was nothing to be seen until he reached in with the toe of his boot and raked out the butt of a fishing rod.
    Thomas whistled softly. “They really had them hidden,” he muttered. “Bush will never believe we didn’t know where they were. Careful — don’t touch anything with your hands.”
    Thomas raised his voice and called the deputy.
    Little Jon watched while Anderson Bush carefully drew two fishing rods, a tackle box, and an expensive target rifle from under the cedars. The deputy remained grimly silent until he had tied the fishing rods and the tackle box together with his handkerchief, and looped the gun strap over his