"Not there, then?" asked Giraffe, in a disappointed tone.
"No, but I saw the print of his shoe on the seat of the boat, which shows Bumpus did climb down here; but it was heading outward, so it seems he came up again. Now to look a little further, and find out if he went on toward the spot where we came to land."
They started off, leaving the vicinity of the fish poachers' hidden boat. For a couple of minutes, Thad seemed to be having little or no trouble in following the marks which Bumpus had left behind him; for the fat scout never so much as dreamed that there was such a thing as covering his trail; nor would he have known of any reason for doing anything like this had he been so far up in woodcraft.
"Hold up!" they heard Thad say, suddenly, as he bent over more than he had been doing up to now.
All of the others waited anxiously to hear what the scout-master believed he had discovered, for they could see him moving this way and that. Finally Thad looked up, to disclose a frown upon his usually calm brow.
"Well, would you, believe it," he went on to say, as free from anger as he possibly could bring himself to speak, "they've gone and done it, after all."
"What, Thad?" asked Giraffe, who had been actually holding his breath the while.
"Jumped on our chum right here, and made him a prisoner," came the staggering reply; "I reckon they must have done something rough to him, or we'd have heard him make some kind of an outcry; but they got Bumpus, all right, boys!"