"You may hear their battle yell any minute," Dick whispered.
"Be careful not to talk loudly enough to give them any clue."

For two or three minutes more Dick led the way. Of a sudden he
halted---right up against a huge surprise. For the boys had suddenly
broken into a little circular clearing, not much more than thirty
feet in diameter. Near the center of this clearing, under a flimsy
shelter he had made of poles and branches, crouched Amos Garwood.
He was at work over a low bench built of a board across two boxes.
So intent was Garwood on what he was doing that he appeared not
to have heard the approach of the boys.

Dick Prescott stood looking on, one hand raised as a signal for
the silence of those behind him. But both Dave and Tom had caught
sight of the stranger at about the same instant.

"If any who know me have hinted that my brain is not strong enough,"
muttered Garwood, whose back was turned to the startled Grammar
School boys, "there is bound to be a great awakening when my wonderful
invention is perfected. Then the world will bow down to me, for
I shall be its master."

"Crazy as a porous plaster!" muttered Tom Reade under his breath.

"It will be a new, a strange sensation," continued Garwood, speaking
just loud enough to be heard by the onlookers. "A great sensation,
too, to be master of the world when, during these present dark
days, I am compelled to run and hide for fear envious scientists
will succeed in capturing me and locking me up."