“’Cept to hock, and get cash on the same, kid,” the man remarked, with a grin, at the same time casting a quick glance upward; “well, I reckon it might ’a’ been all o’ an hour back when George, he passed away.”
The boys looked at each other in some perplexity. Since they had certainly covered the whole island, they could not understand how it came they had missed the other tramp. He was a big fellow, and could not have hidden in any hole among the rocks that they had noticed. The mystery bothered them, from Thad down to Step Hen and Davy.
“What if he did take a notion to try and swim for it?” suggested the latter, as Giraffe was scratching his head, and looking in a helpless fashion at Thad.
“Not one chance in a thousand that way,” replied the patrol leader; “I call myself a fairly good swimmer, but I’d hate to take the chances of that current, and the rocks under the surface. No, he must be on the island still.”
“But whereabouts, Thad; didn’t we cover the ground, every foot of it, while we came down here?” pleaded Step Hen.
“I wonder, now?” Thad was saying half aloud, as though a sudden inspiration had broken in upon him.
“What is it, Thad?” begged Giraffe; “sounds like you’ve got an idea, all right. Let’s hear it, won’t you?”
“There’s only one way we could have missed him,” replied the other; “and that would mean he hid in a tree.”
There arose a series of exclamations from the other scouts.
“Well, what d’ye think of that, now?” cried Giraffe, apparently taken aback by the suggestion; “we kept our noses turned to the ground so much none of us ever bothered looking up, did we?”