CHAPTER XIX.
THE TRAIL OF THE MARAUDER.
When they heard the dreadful news the rest of the scouts looked almost frightened. It was bad enough to know that some evil intentioned man was on the island with them; but that he should have actually crept into their camp while they slept, and very nearly made a clean sweep of their already limited stock of provisions, seemed close to a tragedy. When you threaten to cut off their food supply it is hitting boys in their weakest place.
There was an immediate start for the spot where they had placed their haversacks and the food on the preceding night. Thad, however, held them back.
“Don’t all rush so,” he told them. “We want to look around, and see if we can find out anything. If everybody tramples the ground it’ll be little use trying. Let Allan and Giraffe help me look first. We’ll report anything we find.”
The advice sounded reasonable to the rest; so despite their eagerness to take a hand in the game they held back while the three scouts proceeded to examine the ground.
It was not long before Allan made a discovery.
“I think here’s where he crawled along,” he told Thad, who was close by; “you can see that something’s dragged here, which must have been his knees. Yes, and there’s where the toe of his shoe made a dent in the soil, with another and still another further on. And now he lay flat on his stomach. Perhaps one of us happened to move just then, and he was afraid of being seen.”
“You’re right, Allan,” remarked Thad, after taking a good look; “and to think it possible he was crouching here in the shadows when I got up and threw some wood on the fire. If I knew that I’d feel pretty sore.”
“Well, he went on again pretty soon, didn’t he?” observed Giraffe, who was hovering close by, and keeping close watch on everything that was done.
“Yes, that’s what he did,” resumed Allan, also starting on once more, following the tracks that looked so strange they would have sorely puzzled members of the patrol like Smithy and Bumpus, who were not noted as trackers; “and headed direct for the place where we stacked our things up.”