"How about these wolves; shall we drag them out, and throw the carcases away in some hole?" asked Thad's companion, evidently only too glad to do just whatever the scoutmaster decided were best.
Indeed, he had reason to feel the utmost confidence in Thad Brewster; from the very first this new friend had directed affairs in a way that Aleck looked on as simply wonderful. It was almost like a dream to him, the coming of these scouts, their championing his almost lost cause, and bringing success out of failure. No wonder then that Aleck felt so willing to trust this staunch friend through thick and thin. No wonder that he asked his opinion, knowing full well that whatever Thad decided would be best.
"Might as well get rid of the things while we're about it," was what Thad said. "Sooner or later you'll be entering this passage again, I hope with capitalists along with you to look the mine over, and decide how much money they'll advance to begin its working; and you wouldn't find it nice here, if we left these bodies to cause a disagreeable odor. But we must be careful not to disarrange the vines. And I want to rub out any tracks we may leave, before quitting this place."
Accordingly both the mother wolf and the cub were taken outside. It was not a difficult thing to find a deep hole into which all of the dead animals could be cast; and after this duty had been accomplished the two boys returned to the mouth of the hidden mine.
The fire had been kicked under foot, and extinguished; though Thad afterwards made sure to place the embers in such a position that it would appear to have gone out of its own accord. This was to keep the prospectors from suspecting the truth, should they have the temerity to ever come back again, for one of them had lost his hat in his mad haste to depart.
Then lighting the lantern, Thad tried the best he knew how to smooth over any footprint he or his companion may have made close to the fissure in the rock. He wished Allan might be there just then, for he would have known how to go about it better.
"All right now," he announced a little later, as he arose from his knees.
"What had we better do, stay around here, or try and work a little closer back to camp, to see what has happened there?" Aleck questioned.
"I was thinking it might pay us to do that last," the scoutmaster replied. "We needn't show ourselves, of course; but could hang around until your rascally old uncle and that sheriff went away. Now, if only it was some one else he wanted to nab, what a fine chance this would be for you to get him as an officer of the law to help you locate the mine. But I suppose that would be too dangerous."
"It's an idea worth thinking about," Aleck declared, "and we may find a way yet to carry it out. I hope we won't run across those three scared men, because they headed this way when they ran off. You don't mean to carry the lantern lighted, do you, Thad?"