“Was it the bark of a dog, the mewing of a cat, the bray of a donkey, or the neighing of a horse, Davy?” asked Thad, smiling.
“Nixey, not any of those, Thad,” replied the other solemnly; “but as sure as I’m sitting here it sounded like a shout in a human voice!”
CHAPTER XVII.
LOOKING FOR SIGNS.
“You mean you think you heard some one shouting, do you?” asked Thad, apparently unmoved, though truth to tell he considered this new information of considerable importance.
“That’s what I want you to understand, Thad.”
“Could you make out what was said?” continued the patrol leader, anxious to get at the kernel of the matter as soon as possible.
“Well, no, I don’t believe I did; but it just struck me it was a yell, like anybody would let out if something happened to give him a shock. I reckon that’s what I’d be apt to do if a rattlesnake jumped at me, and I dodged back.”
“Well,” continued Thad confidently, “there couldn’t be any rattlesnake here on this island, I should think, and even if that was so, snakes never come out so early in the season. But Davy, do you think you could tell which direction the shout seemed to come from?”
“Just where I pointed, over there to the east, which is the side of the island. Now, if there’s somebody out here besides us, who could it be?” and Davy asked this question with the confidence the scouts had come to put in their leader, whom they apparently expected to know everything.
“Oh! it might be some fisherman who had a hut here; or even a fugitive from justice, hiding from the officers. You know we’ve run across things like that. Once we even met up with a crazy man who had broken out of an asylum, and was living like a hermit in the woods. All that will come later on, when we find the proof that you haven’t made a mistake.”