"We'd be a fine lot of scouts, wouldn't we," broke in Davy, indignantly, "if we were ready to desert our chum when he was in hard luck? Anybody that knows what the boys of the Silver Fox Patrol of Cranford Troop are would make certain that could never go down with them. Sure we ain't ameaning to keep on hiding our light under a bushel, and sneaking off, while Bumpus, good old Bumpus, is in the hands of the enemy, and p'raps with a splitting headache in the bargain."
"Headache!" echoed Step Hen; "just wait till we get our chance, and if they ain't the fashion among these here poachers, then I don't know beans, and I think I do. Wow! you hear me talking, fellows!" and he caused his club to fairly whistle through the air, as though getting into the swing, so that he would know just how to go about laying out one of the law-breakers when they finally rounded them up.
"Hope we ain't meaning to waste any more time around here than's necessary, Mr. Scout-master?" Giraffe observed, grimly, running his finger suggestively along the edge of the camp hatchet, which they kept in pretty good condition, so that it would really cut quite well.
"We're off right away," said the other.
"And Thad," observed Allan, speaking for the first time, because he was usually a boy of few words, and one who left it to some of the others to do pretty much all the talking, "the new trail, where we fail to find any mark of Bumpus' shoes leads this way, which I take it is toward that shack you said you'd seen last night when you took that little scout on the sly?"
"It sure does, Allan," came the reply.
"Well, then, we must expect that was where they carried our chum; and so we'll make for the cabin now," Allan continued.
"We'll see it soon enough," Thad told them, "because it's only a little ways from where they have their powerboat hidden. Move along as still as you can, boys; and no more talking now—except in whispers."
Every scout must have felt his heart beating like a trip-hammer as the forward progress was continued. The very atmosphere around them seemed to be charged with electricity; at least one would imagine so to see the way they looked suddenly from right to left with quick movements, as they went stooping along.
It was only a space of sixty seconds or so when Thad came to a stop. They knew from this that the cabin spoken of must already have been sighted; and this proved to be the case, as was made apparent when they came to examine the territory just ahead.