As they continued to close in on the spot where the smoke arose, the scouts very naturally felt more or less the thrill of excitement. They knew full well what it meant, for many times in the past the same queer sensation had almost overpowered them.
This chase had been in progress long enough now to have aroused their hunting instincts. That the old blue army coat should eventually be returned to the judge was to most of them a small affair, for they of course did not know the real reason why its recovery mattered to the former owner; but they had somehow set their hearts on accomplishing the object they had in view. And the more difficulty they met with in doing this, the stronger their desire grew.
The trees became more sparse, so that before long they caught glimpses of the fire itself. It was not burning very briskly, though sending off considerable in the way of smoke, a fact that convinced the scouts these hoboes knew nothing concerning woodcraft, and the habits of Indians in making fires of certain kinds of dry fuel that hardly send up any smoke at all.
Now the scouts, having finished their “combing” process, began to gather together for the final rush. They had reached the open ground, where no object half the size of a man could evade them, so they felt they need have no fear of either one of the hoboes passing by.
“I see one of them lying there, like he might be asleep, Thad,” whispered one of the scouts; and of course it could be taken for granted that it was Giraffe, of the eagle eye, who spoke.
“The second fellow may be on the other side of the fire, back of the smoke,” remarked Step Hen; but somehow neither Thad nor Allan could believe this, because the smoke was drifting that way, and they knew very well no one willingly places himself on the leeward side of a smudge like that, suffocating in its effect.
The further they crept the more concerned did Thad and the Maine boy become. They could see the sleeping tramp by now, and it was with more or less uneasiness they realized the fact that he must be other than Wandering George. Besides, not the first sign of the blue army overcoat did they discover anywhere.
While thus preparing to close in on the sleeping tramp, and give him a very unpleasant surprise, the scouts were feeling stunned over the mysterious disappearance of the man they had been following so far, and whom they felt sure must have been on that very island only a comparatively few hours before.
Thad kept hoping that the second hobo would start up from some place when they made their presence known; and it was in this expectation that he finally swung his hat, which started his five companions on a hasty run toward the smoking fire.