Step Hen, Bob White and the other three were of course watching the every movement of the experienced trackers with great interest. They took some little satisfaction in trying to guess just what each movement signified. Bumpus and Smithy of course would never have been able to figure these things out, but the other three had more practical knowledge and could hit closer to the mark.
“There,” Step Hen was saying eagerly; “they’re taking stock of what’s been hooked, and my stars! just look at the way Giraffe throws his hands up, will you? If that doesn’t tell the story, then I’m away off in my guess. I just wager we’ve been cleaned out for keeps, and our little tummies will call in vain for their accustomed rations. I wonder how it feels to starve to death!”
“Oh! quit talking that way, Step Hen,” wailed Bumpus; “we ain’t going to waste away like all that. Give Thad a chance to think up how to win out. Besides, didn’t you hear Giraffe say there was lots of fat game on this island; yes, and fish in the river to boot. I’m not going to give up so easy; there’s always something to fall back on, if it gets to the worst.”
“Yes,” added Step Hen maliciously, “that’s what shipwrecked sailors have to do when they cast lots; and I’m glad now I wasn’t built like a roly-poly pudding. It’s too tempting when hard times come along.”
Bumpus, of course, understood that his chum was only joking, but nevertheless he drew a long breath, and remained very quiet for quite some time after that, as though busied with uneasy thoughts.
“Now they’re starting off again,” remarked Davy, “and I guess it’s to follow the trail of the thief away. I wonder if we could track him to where he hangs out, so as to make him hand over our property.”
“I allow, suh,” Bob White broke in with, “that by the time we did that same there would be mighty little of our food left. He must have been pretty hungry to take the chances he did when he crawled into our camp, and with all these guns around in plain sight.”
“Let’s keep along after the boys,” suggested Step Hen, “and see what they run up against.”
The idea appealed to his companions, for they all started off, though maintaining the same relative distance from Thad and his backers, so as not to interfere with the work. Step Hen took occasion to bend down when he came upon a spot where the imprint of the unknown man’s knee could be seen, and looked at it intently, though finally giving it up as a task beyond his ability.
“Knees all make the same kind of dragging mark to me,” he told the others, who had waited to hear his report, “and I can’t tell one from another. If it was Bumpus here, now, who had done this trick in his sleep, I wouldn’t be able to say for sure, though like as not he’d bear deeper’n this mark shows.”