Three boys stood impatiently kicking the dew off the tall grass in Ring's back yard, only pausing from their scanning of the beclouded, dawn-hinting sky to peer through the lightening dusk toward the clump of cedars that hid the Fulton house. "He's not up yet, or there'd be a light showing," grumbled the short, stocky one of the three. "Humph-it's so late now he wouldn't be needing a light. Tod never failed us yet, Frank, and he told me last night that he'd be right on deck."