“Here they come!” was all Thad said.
“Oh! my, I thought you meant the game poachers!” exclaimed Bumpus, who had made a half movement in the direction of his gun, standing conveniently near.
The two guides joined the circle around the fire. Eli held his hands out to the blaze, as though they felt cold in that nipping night air. Jim simply caught the inquiring eye of the scoutmaster, and immediately nodded his head in the affirmative. And Thad knew from that they had surely made some sort of important discovery.
“What is it, Jim?” he asked.
“They’ve been around here; we found ther tracks lots o’ places,” came the reply.
“Do you mean Cale and Si and Ed?” asked the other.
“On’y Si and Ed,” answered Jim. “Cale he wa’n’t thar ’tall. We’d sized up his big tracks ef he’d be’n. They was two men in thet canoe larst night, ye seen; wall them must a be’n ther lot as fired the brush. I guess as haow Cale, he muster gone back tew his shack by naow.”
“But what on earth could they expect to get by burning us out?” demanded Bumpus.
“Fust place they never oxpected tew burn ther camp,” observed Jim; “ef they hed, doan’t yew believe they’d agone tew windward tew start thet blaze? Wall, they hed a game wuth tew o’ thet up ther sleeve.”
“Tell us what it was, Jim,” urged Thad, though he himself had already jumped to a conclusion in the matter.