“You’re right, Thad,” replied the Maine boy, smiling. “Most of the deer hunters are what we call still hunters. They look for their game, and creep up on it from the leeward side, with the wind coming from the deer. There is no dog chasing deer allowed in the state, or in New York, any longer; so the noise and excitement is all gone. And in a noisy camp you’ll find mighty few deer taken. It’s the quiet, earnest fellows who succeed in getting the game up here.”
“You hear that, scouts,” said Thad, pleasantly. “We want game the worst kind, as well as to overtake that gentleman who is ahead of us, and whose trail we’re now following. So if you please, we’ll dispense with the usual bugle blasts, and the horse play, while in camp here. Let’s have a jolly good time, which I believe is possible among boys, without wrestling, and singing, and rough play. Am I right, Step Hen, Giraffe, Davy, Bumpus?”
“You are, every time, Thad,” said Bumpus, and the other three were quick to take their cue; so that from this hour it seemed likely that the scouts who were for the time being playing the part of big game hunters, meant to carry out the rôle to the letter.
Jim looked at Eli, nodded his head, and winked. It was as though one guide had said to the other that Thad Brewster knew his business, all right.
About half an hour later Step Hen was seen to be moving about in the bushes near the edge of the camp, with his head bent low. Now, every one knew what such an attitude meant when it was Step Hen who assumed it. He had lost something, as usual.
“What’s gone this time, Step Hen?” asked Thad.
“That little jinx been around again, hooking your things?” demanded Giraffe, who always made all manner of fun of the careless scout whenever he complained that he was unable to find a certain thing, which he felt just sure he had laid aside only a minute before.
As usual Step Hen was simply positive that he could not have himself mislaid his property. Proven guilty on numerous previous occasions did not seem to convince the boy that he could ever do such a silly thing again. This was always a case of where some mischievous chum had been playing a trick on him.
“Why, it’s that little bundle I fetched along, with a black piece of waterproof cloth around it, torn from an old rain coat,” he explained, as he continued to poke among the bushes. “It’s got some things in it that I thought I’d likely need up here, in case I happened to get lost; among others, a cute little compass, an extra box of parlor matches that you just can’t blow out in any wind, and some other little wrinkles.”
“Sounds all to the good, Step Hen,” Thad went on to remark; “and I’ve no doubt that if you ever did have the misfortune to get lost, while up here in Maine, that same little packet would come in mighty handy, providing you chanced to have it with you at the time. If it was in camp, why, it couldn’t do you any good. But what makes you think it’s gone now?”
“I had it in my hand not ten minutes ago, and laid it carefully aside,” Step Hen went on, in a whining tone as though he felt hurt; but which was doubtless only assumed for the purpose of arousing sympathy; “oh! you can grin as much as you want, Giraffe and Davy, but it’s so, this time. I was careful as could be. And now, she’s gone. I just know one of you fellers scooped that packet, and hid the same in the bushes, just to give me a rough jolt. And that’s why I’m hunting for it right now.”
Thad was on his feet at the time; and with a smile at the old complaint, which he had heard Step Hen make, time without end, only to find himself compelled to “eat his words,” as Giraffe put it, he sauntered away, meaning to take a little look around, before turning in.
Two minutes later Step Hen gave a little gurgling cry.
“Found it?” asked Giraffe, with an interested air.
“Just like I said was the case,” came from Step Hen, in the bushes close by. “The feller that took it just gave it a flirt, and over she came, right here. What! Well, I declare that’s mighty funny now,” and he pushed his way into view carrying some object in his hand, at which he was staring incredulously.
“Say, that ain’t your package, is it, Step Hen?” demanded Giraffe.
“I should say it wasn’t;” replied the other scout; “but tell me, fellers, how in the wide world now, d’ye suppose this came in them bushes?” and he held up what seemed to be a small hand-bag of black leather, apparently weighty, and very much used.
All of them, guides as well as scouts, stared at the strange object which Step Hen was holding up.
“Looks like a little hand-bag of leather; but it’s been used a heap, I reckon,” suggested Davy Jones.
“Just what she is,” replied Step Hen, as he lowered the article; and something in his manner of doing this impelled Giraffe to remark:
“Reckon she must be kinder heavy, Step Hen?”
“Heft it for yourself, and see,” replied the other, as Giraffe came to his side.
“Whew! I should say, yes!” declared the tall member of the patrol, as he lifted the old black hand-bag, and held it out in a horizontal position for a few seconds. “All of five pounds there, if there’s a single one. Now, what d’ye suppose is in that thing?”
“And how did it ever come in them bushes; that’s what gets me?” queried Step Hen, staring at the bag, which he had taken again, as though half inclined to suspect that the mischievous little jinx, whom Giraffe always said played these mean tricks on him, might possess the power to change his black package into this weatherbeaten little bag.
“Oh! it’s old, you c’n see,” remarked Giraffe, carelessly. “P’raps the hunter that carried it up here got sick of his bargain; and slipping a few rocks inside, to weigh it down, he just gave her a heave out of sight.”
“Think so?” remarked Step Hen. “Well, anyhow, it don’t look a bit like that lost package of mine, does it?”
“Suppose you open it up,” suggested Allan; “it might be you’d find your missing things inside.”
Doubtless he only said this in a spirit of fun, in order to hasten Step Hen; but the other took it seriously.
“Now, however in the wide world would my packet come in here, Allan?” he asked. “None of the boys ever set eyes on this bag before, have you, fellers?”
Giraffe, Davy, and Bumpus thereupon solemnly raised, each one his right hand, and declared that to the best of their knowledge and belief they had never glimpsed that same bag until their comrade carried it out of the bushes.
“Now, open her up, Step Hen, and let’s see the kind of rocks it’s got inside,” Giraffe demanded.
Whereupon Step Hen proceeded to cautiously test the catch of the bag. Finding that it would give readily, he pressed it further, and then drew back the jaws of the leather receptacle.
“Rocks?” he ejaculated, scornfully, just as if he had never taken the least stock in that far-fetched theory himself; “what d’ye call that, fellers?”
He had thrust in a hand, and was now holding something aloft. The dancing light from the campfire shone upon the object, which seemed to glisten like polished steel.
Immediately Giraffe set up a laugh.
“Well, I declare, fellers,” he remarked, “some poor old carpenter’s gone and lost his kit of tools. Shows that Step Hen ain’t the only loony wanderin’ about in these here pine woods, droppin’ his things around loose, and then forgettin’ where he put ’em. And to think it should be the same sort of one that found these tools. Ain’t that a queer case, though?”
“Carpenter’s tools,” Step Hen went on, indignantly, as he held up a second, and then other articles, which he took from the bag; “did you ever watch a carpenter at work, Giraffe; and did you ever see him use tools like them? If you did, then believe me, that feller ought to a been in the lock-up, that’s what.”
“Lock-up!” repeated Giraffe after him, and he stared at Step Hen as though he believed the other might be trying to play some sort of a joke.
“That’s right, in the lock-up,” the other scout went on, firmly. “When I was down to New York with my dad last year, he had to see the Police Commissioner about a little business; and they were old friends too. I went along, and sat there in one of the offices nigh an hour. To amuse myself, I examined the heaps of queer things they had there, which I reckoned had been taken from all sorts of crooks that’d been arrested for years. And in the lot I saw some tools mighty like these, boys!”
“Wow, and again I say, wow!” murmured Giraffe.
“Thieves’ tools, hey?” grunted Bumpus, pushing forward to handle some of the shiny articles himself. “P’raps now, one of these here might be what they call a jimmy, and another a centerbit. I always used to read about such things in every story in the papers of a burglary down in the city.”
Davy also wanted to examine the things at close range, and so they were passed around. Even the two guides seemed to take a deep interest in the contents of the little old black bag; and for several minutes a buzz followed, as each voiced his opinion concerning the merits of the tools to accomplish such a job as breaking into a strong box of a bank.
“But just stop and think,” remarked Step Hen, presently, “how far this is from any town where these fellers could use their tools. No wonder they hid ’em in the bushes right here. The only thing they could expect to break into up here would be the game laws.”
“Or the river,” suggested Giraffe, with a sly glance toward Bumpus, who flashed him back a scornful look.
“My opinion is, fellows,” observed Allan, who thus far had not taken any part in the earnest discussion, “that these things might never have been lost at all.”
“Oh! then you think they hid ’em here?” asked Step Hen.
“Either that, or else just tossed them away, to get rid of carrying such a heavy package any longer,” the Maine boy went on. “Such men would never come up here to camp out, or to hunt. Only one thing would be apt to tempt them to dive into the woods like this; they expected to be hunted, and are on the way to the Canada border as fast as they can pack.”
Somehow, the idea seemed to please the rest of the scouts; and even Jim and Eli nodded their heads, as though they quite agreed with Allan, after he had evolved the suggestion, which likely enough would have never occurred to them.
“Say, d’ye suppose, now,” Giraffe asked, “that these jail birds could have cracked a crib before they took to the woods?”
“Well, just as like as not,” answered Allan; “though we can’t tell that so easy. They must have tried to get away with some loot, though, and found the officers hot after them. So, to escape being caught they’ve taken to the woods.”
“But that might be jumpin’ from the frying-pan into the fire,” Davy declared. “If they happened to be greenhorns, now, it’d be apt to go hard with ’em up here, with the winter comin’ on, p’raps no blankets along, and only a little grub. Huh! they might even wish they’d let the officers ketch ’em. Three meals, such as they are in jail, are better than nothin’ to eat in the wilderness.”
“Oh!” Allan went on to say, “the chances are, they had a fellow along who knew more or less about what to do in the woods, and what not to do; because you see, they seemed to get up this far all right.”
“What if there was a big reward out for their capture, and we managed to crowd the bunch to the wall?” suggested Bumpus, enviously. “Say, we’d be fixed then for a lot more of outings, wouldn’t we, fellers?”
Allan laughed. It was so strange to hear Bumpus, usually the most peaceable of the entire patrol, speak in so fierce a tone.
“You don’t stop to mention what these desperate chaps would be doing all that time, Bumpus,” he remarked, drily. “There must be two of them, perhaps more; and it stands to reason that they’re hard cases, ready to fight at the drop of the hat. I guess we’ll have to just attend to our own affairs, and let the sheriff look after these jail birds.”
“But if we happened to run foul of them, wouldn’t we be doin’ the right thing to try and grab the lot?” demanded Bumpus, loth to admit defeat when he had been conjuring up a bright idea.
“Certainly, if it could be done without too much risk,” replied the assistant scoutmaster, readily enough. “Such men are outlaws to society, and it’s the duty and privilege, I’ve heard my father say, of all honest persons to capture them, in case the chance comes along.”
“We’ve got a rifle or a shotgun apiece; and each of the guides is provided with his gun too, so we ought to turn the trick easy enough,” Bumpus continued. “Eight determined men against two, or p’raps three, you see. They may be tough characters, when they’re in cities, but I just bet you now their old knees knock together if they saw a row of eight firearms all aimin’ at their heads. That’s talkin’ some.”
“I should say it was, from you, Bumpus,” remarked Allan; “but don’t get too anxious to come to close quarters with these men. I can give a guess what they’re like. I’ve seen what they call yeggs before now, roving burglars who play the part of tramps, so as to get a chance to look country banks over, and break in some dark night, when the town people are sound asleep. And I want to tell you, boys, I don’t like the breed. If I have my choice I’m going to mind my own business, and let the law officers attend to theirs.”
“And,” broke in Davy Jones, “up here our business is first of all following the trail of Mr. Carson and his two guides; and after that, to get just as much hunting of the big game as we can.”
“What you going to do with all these clever little tools, Step Hen?” asked Giraffe. “I hope now, you don’t expect to tote ’em along with you? If they turned out too heavy for the fleeing yeggmen to keep, think of how you’ll suffer. Better give ’em a heave into the bushes again, and say good-bye. They might get you into a peck of trouble, boy.”
“Oh! I don’t know,” remarked Step Hen, “I’ll keep the bag till mornin’ anyhow, an’ then let Thad say whether we want to pick out a few of these things, just to remember the affair by.”
He laid the numerous tools in a heap beside him, and then turned the old hand-bag over, as though meaning to clean it out before replacing the contents.
“Hello! what’s this?” he exclaimed; “Oh! I thought at first it was another tool; but seems like it’s only an old stick of dirty gray mud. Queer how that could a got in this bag, ain’t it? Whatever did them yeggmen want carryin’ hard mud around with ’em, I wonder?”
He drew his hand back, evidently with the intention of throwing the article into the blaze, when a hand clutched his wrist, and the voice of Thad, a bit husky, sounded close to his ear:
“Hold on! don’t you think of tossing that into the fire, Step Hen! Why, are you crazy? Didn’t you ever see such a thing before in your life. No wonder Allan, there, was nearly scared to death when he saw what you meant to do; because Step Hen, this stick of innocent mud, as you called it, is really dynamite!”
Step Hen weakly allowed his hand to open, and the scoutmaster possessed himself of the deadly four-inch stick of explosive.
“Dynamite!” echoed Giraffe as his face blanched. “And the silly was just goin’ to give it a heave into the fire. Great governor! what would have happened to the Silver Fox Patrol if he had?”
“Please don’t mention it, Giraffe,” said poor Step Hen, weakly, “However was I to know what it was, when I hadn’t ever seen such a thing before in all my life?”
“Well,” remarked Thad, grimly, “that’s the time you should have remembered that a scout must always be prepared to think for himself, and observe too. I heard something of what was said as I stood here, watching. You had guessed easily enough that these were the tools with which bank burglars break into safes. And since you read the papers, Step Hen, you must surely know that they often use dynamite to burst open the lock of a safe. You never stopped to think, that’s the trouble. All you had to do would be to say to yourself, ‘now, what would thieves be likely to have this for, because it must enter into their business?’ and the chances were ten to one you’d have guessed it, right away. Think twice after this, Step Hen, before you do a rash thing like that.”
The scoutmaster spoke more sternly than was his wont when dealing with those who were under his charge; because he had been horrified and thrilled when he realized the terrible danger that hovered over them all, should Step Hen manage to give the innocent looking stick a toss into the fire, before he could leap alongside, and stay his arm.
Perhaps the dynamite might not have exploded before he could with a frantic effort dislodge it from the burning brands; but the chances of its going off were legion, and he could never afterwards think of the incident without a shudder.
“I’ll try and remember, Thad,” said Step Hen, meekly, for he was shivering now, because of the narrow escape he and his chums had had.
Thad, on his part, carefully placed the dangerous explosive in the crotch of a tree near by, where it could do no harm.
“We’d better bury it in the morning, to get rid of it,” he observed, as he sat down to examine the odd looking assortment of little tools, for himself.
The others gathered around, curious to hear what Thad’s opinion might be; for they were used to setting considerable store by his decisions on any subject.
“How d’ye s’pose now, Thad,” remarked Giraffe, to draw the other out, “these fellers just came to stop over here, in the identical place we chose for a camp? That what’s getting me.”
“Oh that’s easy,” replied the other, with a little laugh. “We seemed to strike this place by accident; but I reckon that if you asked Eli or Jim here about it, they’d be apt to tell you it’s an old camping spot. How about it, men?”
“Be’n here often with parties,” replied the older guide, promptly. “Seen hundreds o’ fine trout jerked outen thet pool over there.”
“Me tew,” declared Jim, grinning broadly at finding how smart this boy seemed to be.
“There you are, Giraffe,” Thad went on to say, turning once more to the scout. “Perhaps, as somebody said only a little while back, this leader of the sprinting yeggmen has himself been camping here one or more times in the past, and he knows the trails of the woods around here. Why, there’s a pretty good chance that Mr. Carson himself stopped here over night, something like a week or less ago.”
“But he didn’t find that bag, nor his guides either,” remarked Step Hen, with a little show of pride; as though he believed he ought to at least have a small amount of credit for bringing the thing to light.
“For a good reason,” Thad went on; “because it wasn’t in the bushes when Mr. Carson came along this way.”
“You think, then, that the fellers who owned these things must have been here after Mr. Carson was, do you, Thad?” Davy Jones asked.
“I’ve a good notion that way,” the scoutmaster replied; “and we’re going to prove it, presently. There are lots of ways to do that, you’ll find; and if Allan and I happen to fall down, why, we’ll call on Sebattis here to show us. Allan tells me that an Indian can read signs just like you would print, Davy.”
“Like to see him try it, then,” muttered the scout, casting a side glance toward the silent Penobscot brave, who was sitting there watching them, and never so much as opening his mouth, or betraying any particular interest, though he must have heard every word that had been spoken thus far.
“After we’ve had a hack at it, we may,” Thad admitted. “You know Allan is up to some of these things, and we ought to give him a show before calling in outside talent; isn’t that so, boys?”
“Sure it is,” cried Bumpus; “and it’s my private opinion, publicly expressed, that our comrade can deliver the goods too. Give Allan a square deal. Let him ‘mosey’ around, and say what he thinks. Then we’ll ask the guides to prove it. That’s the ticket, fellers. An’ he can’t begin any too soon to satisfy my bump of curiosity. They do say at my house I’m a reg’lar old woman for wantin’ to know; and I must acknowledge the corn all right. Won’t you get busy, Allan, and relieve a sufferin’ public?”
Thus appealed to, the Maine boy could not resist. “Of course I’m not saying I can tell you all that either of these guides might—not to mention Sebattis here,” he remarked, “but I’ll do the best I can.”
“Reckon that’s about nigh all anybody can do,” observed Giraffe, also getting to his feet; for he was more or less interested in any demonstration of woodcraft that applied to Boy Scout knowledge.
“Of course I know what the footprint of every one of us looks like, even to our guides,” began Allan; “because I’ve made it my business to keep my eyes around. And the first thing I’m going to do is to find out if there is any track here different from ours. If I find that, I’ll be pretty sure it was made by others who camped here within the last night or two.”
“But why do you say that?” demanded Bumpus, eagerly. “What if Mr. Carson did stop here five, six or even seven nights ago; you might run on his track, you know.”
“If I did, I’d know it,” replied Allan; “not that I’ve even set eyes on the print of his hunting shoe or boot, if he wears such, instead of moccasins; but stop and remember, Bumpus we had a heavy rain day before yesterday that must have passed over this section as well as where we struck it. After that it turned cold.”
“Oh! I forgot all about that,” admitted the other scout, looking foolish. “Why, of course, that same rain would have washed out the footprints of anybody who had camped here as long ago as four or five nights. That’s right Allan.”
“If it didn’t exactly wash the footprints out, it would make them look faint; and a trailer would soon know they were old. Now let me take a turn around, and do the rest of you sit quiet here, till I call out that I’ve found something.”
He took a blazing brand from the fire, and began to move around the outskirts of the camp, beyond the tents and the glow of the fire.
“Why does he go so far away?” asked Bumpus.
“Because we’ve been walking around here so much that all chance of making any discovery would be lost,” replied Thad; “and out there he may stand a show. There, I can see him stoop down lower, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d hit a footprint right away.”
The others all craned their necks in order to see what Allan was doing; and of course Giraffe had them left far in the lurch when it came to this, on account of his being gifted by a bountiful Nature with such an exceedingly long ostrich like appendage below his head.
“Yes, he’s sure struck something,” Giraffe declared, as though anxious to show what an advantage it was sometimes to be the possessor of a neck that was longer than any of the others.
“There, he’s beckoning to us to come on over, fellers!” exclaimed Bumpus, as he tried to leap to his feet; but, owing to his weight, this was never an easy thing for him, and he did not refuse the helping hand Thad stretched out.
So they joined Allan, as he stood there, holding his torch near the ground.
“What you found?” asked Giraffe, as they came up.
“Here’s a print, all right, that seems altogether different from any of ours. I can show you that the shoe has been patched across the toe, and none of ours has such a mark. It’s a fresh print too, and that means the man who made it must have been here since that rain storm. Is that clear enough for you, boys?”
“It’s a cinch, that’s what, Allan. Why, I’m only a tenderfoot scout, but I can understand that much. And I’m real glad to know it, too. We want to take a good look at that shoe print, fellers; p’raps we might want to know it again sometime.”
Step Hen as he said this threw himself down on the ground, and seemed to be making a mental photograph of the impression.
“How d’ye reckon they got here, Allan; by boat, or through the woods direct?” asked Thad, as though he had himself been pondering over that question, without being able to connect, as yet.
“Let’s take a look along the edge of the river,” remarked the Maine boy. “If so be they had a canoe, we ought to be able to see where it was pulled up on the little beach down here. Such a mark would stay a long time unless the water rose, and I don’t think that happened here, not over half a foot, anyhow.”
So once more they walked after Allan, who was soon examining the shore close to the edge of the water.
“There’s a mark you can all see, that looks as if a boat had been pulled up, but it’s old and faint. The rain has nearly washed it out. Do any of you glimpse signs of another scratch that’s fresher?”
Allan’s purpose, of course, was to make his chums think they were having a hand in the search. Then, when telling the story afterwards, they could say “when we had hunted all along the shore, and didn’t find any fresh sign, we knew that the yeggs must sure have walked all the way through the woods.”
There was a little hustle as Giraffe, Davy, Step Hen and Bumpus all endeavored to earn the right to include themselves in the affair; after which they united in declaring that no further signs lay along the little beach.
“Well, we’ve settled that part of it pretty cleverly, I guess,” Thad declared, as he smiled at Allan.
“It was one of the easiest jobs I ever tackled,” declared the other.
“Wonder which way they went when they left here?” Bumpus remarked.
“Now, just don’t bother your head about that, Bumpus,” said Step Hen. “You’re letting your envious mind think of that fat reward again; but you’d better forget it, Thad says.”
“Oh! if they were making toward the Canada border,” observed Allan, “why, of course they headed north after leaving here.”
“And so are we,” was all Bumpus allowed himself to say in reply; but the look he gave Step Hen was sufficient to announce that he did not mean to wholly relinquish all idea that somehow, some time, they might yet run across the fugitives, and be able to capture them handsomely.
The boys started back to the fire. Some of them were even settled down close to the cheerful blaze, warming themselves, and ready to talk some more about the strange thing that had happened. Bumpus was kicking his toe into the earth, as if some object had attracted his attention. All at once he swooped down, and then gave utterance to an excited ejaculation.
“Looky at what I got, fellers!” he exclaimed hurrying up to the fire.
“Money, real hard money!” cried Step Hen, enviously. “Where’d you dig that up, Bumpus? Say, p’raps there’s more like it buried there. Mebbe we’ll strike a gold mine, and go home millionaires, every one.”
For Bumpus was holding a bright new five dollar gold piece in his hand, at which they all stared with more or less delight.
“I saw it shinin’ and gave a little kick at the place, thinkin’ it might be a piece of glass, or some old tin cut off a can. Then it broke loose from the frozen dirt, and I saw this little beauty,” Bumpus was saying, in rapture.
“Easy money!” grunted Giraffe, enviously; while Step Hen darted over to see if he might not be as lucky, though only to meet with bitter disappointment.
“That seems to settle one thing, boys,” remarked Thad. “Those rascals did rob a bank before they took to the woods. And the stuff they got was so heavy to carry, they just had to throw away their tools here. That looks plain enough, don’t it?”
All of them agreed that it did sound very much that way. Indeed, Davy Jones remarked that he considered them very sensible men, because he himself would only too gladly get rid of some old steel tools, if he had a chance to carry a bag of gold coins along.
Ten minutes later, as they were talking and laughing there, never thinking how late the hour was getting, and that they ought to be seeking their blankets under the shelter of the two tents, Sebattis was seen to quietly reach out his hand, and pick up his gun, after which he slipped away.
The boys exchanged glances, but made no remark. Another ten minutes passed by, when there came a startling interruption to the peaceful quiet of the camp. From some point near by a harsh voice suddenly sounded, thrilling the scouts as they could seldom remember being shaken:
“Throw up your hands, there, every one of you, and see that you keep ’em raised, if you know what’s good for you!”
And at the same moment three men issued from the recesses of the woods, and advanced toward them, all of whom held leveled guns in their hands.
Of course everybody did as they were told; and when they afterwards exchanged opinions regarding the ridiculous character of the picture they must have made, with six boys and two men trying to see who could elevate his hands the highest, they must always laugh until the tears rolled down their cheeks.
Somehow all of the scouts just took it for granted that these three advancing parties must surely be the men of whom they had been talking, the fleeing desperate rascals who had lately robbed a bank, and were trying to make the border so that they might cross over into Canada, from which territory they would be able to make faces at any pursuers.
But Thad, as he began to see the newcomers better, when they drew nearer the fire, felt relieved. An idea started to flit through his active brain, to the effect that after all they might not be the thieves, come back for some purpose, perhaps to recover possession of the little, old, black tool-bag.
“Now,” called out the tall man who was in the lead, and who seemed to be in authority, “we know you’re tough cases, and we don’t mean to give any one of you a chance to play a game on us; so my men will keep you all covered, while I go the rounds, and put the irons on.”
“Wow!” exclaimed Giraffe, his eyes looking as round as saucers, when he heard this remark on the part of the supposed terrible yeggman.
“Please go a little slow about that, Mr. Sheriff!” called out Thad. “If you look again, I’m sure you’ll discover that six of us are only boys, and that we belong to a troop of scouts. We’re up here on the track of a Mr. James W. Carson, who is in the woods, with two guides. It is of great importance that I find him, as I am bearing a communication that means a heap to both Mr. Carson and my guardian. As for these two men here, they are our guides, Jim Hasty and Eli Crookes. I guess you ought to know them both, sir. And there’s another, Sebattis, who is right behind you, gun in hand, ready to hold you up if you try to do us any harm.”
The tall man whom Thad had rightly guessed to be the sheriff in chase after the burglars who were fleeing toward the border, gave another look, and then burst into a loud shout.
“That’s one on us, all right, young fellow,” he remarked. “We wondered why under the sun our birds had started to hobnob with a crowd of Boy Scouts; but you never can tell what’s what, when you’re dealing with such sharp customers, and we didn’t mean to take any chances. It’s all right, men, you needn’t handle those guns as if you meant to shoot, any longer. These parties are all right. But what I do want to know is, how came you by that?”
He pointed as he spoke at the old tool-bag that was lying beside Step Hen; and evidently he must have recognized it, or else suspected what it contained.
“That’s mine—er, I mean to say I found the same in the bushes here, when I was huntin’ something I lost,” and Step Hen held up a little packet secured in waterproof cloth, which he had evidently since discovered, just where he formerly laid it down.
“We opened the bag, and guessed that the tools must have been thrown away by some yeggmen who were making a bolt across country for the Canada border,” remarked Thad, as the three officers sat down close to the fire to warm their hands.
“And that’s just what’s what,” responded the sheriff, nodding as he examined the contents of the bag. “We hope to get ’em in time, because it means a cool thousand to us, perhaps more, because the reward may have been doubled after we hit the woods. Sometimes we’ve been hot on the track, and then again they’d give us the slip, and we’d lose ground. I’ve often wished we had dogs along; but they’re hard to find; and people, somehow, don’t like to see dogs up here, since the law put a ban on deer hounding.”
“I’d like to keep just one of them tools, to remember my find by, if you didn’t have any objection,” suggested Step Hen anxiously.
“You can keep the whole bunch if you like, son,” answered the sheriff; “we don’t need any such evidence against these birds, if only we can ketch ’em. They’re carrying all the evidence we want, in the shape of the entire capital of the bank they looted so slick.”
“I suppose they broke open the safe in the usual way, with dynamite?” Thad remarked, quietly.
“Just what they did, though how you guessed it I don’t see,” the sheriff replied.
“We found something in the bag that told us that,” and Thad, as he spoke, stepped over to the tree, in the crotch of which he had placed the stick of dynamite.
Step Hen turned red in the face as he heard the story told of how he had just been about to throw the unknown substance into the fire when prevented. The lengthy sheriff looked reproachfully toward him, and remarked, mildly: