“Well, since Bumpus wasn’t outside of his blanket once all night long, you can’t saddle this job on his poor shoulders. He’s got enough to carry as it is, see?” and the stout boy put all the emphasis possible on that last word, as though he meant to make it decisive.
“They seem to be getting close to the bushes now,” Bob White observed.
“And once he got in there mebbe the thief would rise to his feet to walk away,” added Step Hen. “If Thad beckons you’ll know he’s settled it in his mind to follow the trail, and wants all of us who own guns to rally around him.”
“How about the rest; what will they be doing?” asked Smithy.
“Tending camp, of course,” replied the other. “Think now we know we’ve got a thief for a neighbor we want him to steal our blankets next? A nice pickle we’d be in without some way to keep warm nights. Remember, if you are left on guard, to defend the blankets with your very lives, both of you!”
This sort of lurid talk of course thrilled Bumpus very much, for he had a habit of taking what the others said literally, and could not see the vein of humor apt to lie back of bombastic vaporings. He was rubbing his fat hands one over the other in a nervous way, and alternately watching what Step Hen did, and then how the others were coming on.
They could see that Thad and his two fellow scouts were just back of the first fringe of bushes. They had possibly made some sort of discovery, because all of them seemed to be down on hands and knees, with their faces close to the earth, and apparently examining certain impressions.
“I wonder what’s up now?” ventured Davy.
“They’ve run on something that’s staggered the bunch, you can see easily enough,” Step Hen went on to say excitedly; “and I’m trying to make up my mind whether after all it was a man crawling along that made those queer marks. P’raps, now, some sort of big wild animal might have done it. We haven’t seen a single footprint, you remember, to tell the story. I wish I knew what they’ve run across. Why don’t they call us over, and let us in? It isn’t just fair to keep us worrying like we are.”
Just as though Thad might have heard this complaint on the part of Step Hen, he turned toward them, and raising his hand beckoned.