“And I’m always ready to explain as far as I can,” the scout-master told him. “At the same time I have to keep an eye on Allan here, for you all know that when it comes to reading the signs of the woods I sit at his feet. What I pick up just by figuring out, he knows from past experience. So I want him to pull me in just as quick as he sees I’m on the wrong track; promise that, Allan.”
“Go ahead,” remarked the Maine boy, but his manner told plainly enough that he was very little afraid he would have to do anything of the kind.
“Of course,” Thad began, “all of you can see by the marks here that something was moving along toward our camp; and if you look a little closer you’ll notice that it was a man on his hands and knees; for here are the plain impressions of both his hands; while his shuffling knees made that mark, and that, and here is where his toes dragged along. Plain enough, eh, fellows?”
“As easy to read as A B C!” declared Giraffe, eagerly.
“Another thing is that he had just reached this spot behind the bushes at the time Giraffe let fly with his gun, and then we all started to shout; for you can see the tracks go no further. On the contrary, the man became suddenly frightened, under the belief that he had been discovered; for here he scrambled to his feet, as you can plainly see each impression of a bare foot, and as he hurried away he kept back of the low bushes, from which I deduce the idea that he must have stooped over in order not to be seen and fired on.”
“Well, it goes right along like a book, don’t it?” said Bumpus, looking at the young scout-master in admiration and wonder; for he could not imagine how any one, and a mere boy at that, could discover so much just from observation, and using his common sense at the same time.
Allan nodded his head approvingly.
“But chances are that isn’t near all you noticed, Thad?” he said, questioningly.
“You’re right, it isn’t,” said the other, promptly. “I can see from the signs that the man is barefooted, and consequently in great need; so I am compelled to believe that he must be an escaped convict who has been trying to keep life in his wretched body, perhaps for months, in this swamp, eating roots or berries, trapping birds, or catching fish, muskrats, turtles, anything that he can find. And as nearly all those who are held in these camps are blacks, I find it easy to guess that this is a negro.”
“Ain’t that a great way of finding out things, though?” marveled Bumpus. “Why, Thad, you talk just like you’d been watching that poor old chap every second of the time. I don’t reckon, now, that you could tell us anything else about him—how big he was, and all that?”