"That sounds like you think he took on all that dirt on purpose?" remarked Bumpus.
"Perhaps he did," replied Thad; "perhaps the man is playing some sort of part, for a reason of his own."
"Bunking with an ignorant foreigner just to get a chance to sneak into camps, and run off with the haversacks that have been carelessly left lying around loose?" suggested Step-hen, still harping on his wrongs.
"Well, I don't agree with you there, Step-hen," remarked Allan. "Like Smithy here, I found something about that man that interested me. If asked me point-blank now, possibly I couldn't tell you what it was that attracted me—his eyes, his smile, or his whole manner. But I'd be badly mistaken if he would turn out to be a rascal."
"And I say the same," observed Thad, vigorously.
"Oh! well, you fellows may be right," remarked Giraffe; "but to my mind there's something mighty suspicious about the way they came snooping around here. Reckon that party might know more about how certain kinds of wild game find their way to the New York hotels in the close season, than he'd like to own up to. And I tell you right now what I mean to do."
"Go on, we all want to know," urged Thad.
"While I'm up here," Giraffe continued, loftily, "I expect to keep my eyes open to find evidences of traps and snares set in the woods to catch partridges, rabbits and the like. And some time, if anybody wants to paddle for me, I'm agoin' to go all the way around this here lake, lookin' for nets, set to haul in the game bass."
"You ought to be wearing the badge of a game warden, Giraffe," declared Davy, with a mock bow in the direction of the speaker; "but they'd have to watch you right smart now, because some of that game would go to keep you from starving."
They continued to talk until a late hour, and every boy was given a chance to air his opinion. Still, no wonderfully new ideas seemed to be in evidence; and when the patrol sought the blankets, leaving the camp-fire dying down, they were about evenly divided on the question as to whether the educated tramp keeping company with the foreign owner of the bear was a smart man, or just a scamp.