By the time we arrived, all the attention had turned to the engine. Dale had the coil wire pulled off, and Darren was rolling it over has everyone listened under the hood. It wasn't a sharp tick or knock, more of a rumble.
"It's definitely on this side", Michael Sporrong was pointing at the driver's side valve cover.
"Yeah, and it sounds like a piston or a valve... like air is going someplace it's not supposed to be!" I added.

A school bus pulled up and dropped off a boy, maybe 9 or 10, at the house we were parked in front of. He practically sprinted to the front door, all the while stealing concerned looks back at us. He dropped his bag on the front porch and while looking back at us, scrambled to find the key under the mat. He clutched the key to his chest and spun around putting himself between the screen door with it's powerful door retractor and the front door, squirming like he feared for his life, or desparately had to go to the bathroom. Finally the door opened and he bolted in, then he remembered his bag, and tentatively came back out to snatch it with his eyes trained on our every move. He nearly made it back in unscathed, but the screen door closed on the backpack like a clam shell. Two hard pulls brought it free, but landed the poor little guy on his backside just inside the house, he jumped up and slammed the front door with all his might!
Boone must've been watching as intently as I was, because both of us burst into laughter at nearly the same time.
"I thought I was witnessing a scene out of 'Home Alone'!"
"I was thinking the same thing", Boone shook his head.
Twenty minutes later, a little red econobox screeched into the driveway, and a girl in her late teens ran to the house and picked the boy up, both of them looking at us like we were movie ogres or something as they sped away.
"Apparently Boone, hot rodders are held in the same light as pirates and thieves in these parts!"
"Maybe so, we've already had several people stop by and ask us what was going on, one of them was a mopar guy, who just happens to be a sherriff's deputy... he said we could leave the car at his house if we need to."
"Well, I guess that may be an option, but heck, we're only 275 miles away from finishing this deal!"