"As sure as you're born it has!" echoed Bobolink.
All doubt was dissipated just then, for a series of loud and derisive shouts in boyish treble welled up from outside.
"Shucks!" grunted Bobolink, in sheer disgust; "we've gone and let the Slavin fellers have another crack at us. A nice lot of scouts we look like, not to keep sentries on duty when we have a secret meeting. And now they've got us cooped up here like a lot of old hens! Shucks! I say again!"
"Well, that's no reason we have to stay cooped up, is it?" demanded Jack, as he turned to hunt around for some object which could be used for a battering ram so as to force the barricaded door of the barn.
"T-t-try the b-b-big wagon doors, fellows!" whooped Bluff.
They did, but with no more success than had attended their puny efforts against the smaller exit. Those who had been at work while they talked must have done a good job, for the big doors were utterly immovable.
"Do we have to stay in here until morning?" wailed Andy Flinn, in mock despair.
"Not much, if I have to climb up to the roof, and knock a plank off. Say, those fellows must have been spying out here when I met them this morning," said Bobolink.
"Listen now, what d'ye suppose they're doing?" demanded Nuthin'.
All remained in an attitude of expectancy, and could hear strange sounds that seemed to come from under the boards forming the floor of the barn; which building had not always been used for drying tobacco alone.
"Now what d'ye suppose the sillies are poking poles under there, for?" ejaculated William; "and just when I was going to propose that we pull up a board, and crawl through the hole."
"Whew! what's this mean? Say, fellows, if that don't make me think of a blessed old skunk I don't know the odor when I meet it!" and Wallace drew back as he was about to get down on his hands and knees to investigate the meaning of the odd sounds under the barn flooring.
Others got it quickly, and various cries arose, as the boys began to hold their noses, and look around at each other.
"It'll smother us, fellows, that's what!" gasped William, quite pale by now; for the odor which a skunk leaves in its wake affects some persons powerfully, though others hardly mind it at all.