"Perhaps we may move over here to-morrow," said Thad. "I've several reasons for thinking that way."
"One of which is that you'd like to get rid of that bear," chuckled Bob.
"Don't be too sure of that," answered the other; "we might want to fetch him over here with us. He did us one good turn when he frightened that Brose Griffin crowd away, and who knows but what he might repeat?"
They came out on the other side of the island, and had seen no sign of any sort of human habitation. On the way back again to the other shore Thad took a different route, so that he believed they would thus cover the better part of the territory that went to make up the lake island.
"Sure we're heading right, Thad?" asked Bob, presently.
"Oh! my goodness I hope we don't get lost!" exclaimed Bumpus, in alarm.
"It's all right," replied Thad, with not a trace of uneasiness in his voice; "we are pretty nearly across now; and unless I've made a bungle of it, we ought to come out right on that same little sandy stretch where we landed."
"I can hear the waves beating against the rocks, and they sound right loud now," remarked Bumpus.
"That must be because the wind has been getting stronger all the time we've been gone; and even now you notice the trees begin to thin out. Tell me, isn't that our sandy stretch right ahead there, and am I a good woodsman or not?"
"You brought us through as straight as a die," said Bob, admiringly; "and just as you say, Thad, that's the same spot we landed on."