"Oh! that was the most natural thing in the world for any one to do, and I don't deserve any credit, Allan. But there were times when I admit I did have to almost smell that trail, for it passed over little stretches of rock, you see. At such times I had to look around, guess about where it ought to be found where the earth began again, and in that way pick it up once more."
"And it really led you to a cabin, did it?" Allan asked, as the other paused.
"Yes, and there had been a fire burning in front of the shack, though I found only the ashes, as though it had been-hurriedly put out, perhaps when they first saw us heading toward the island, just before the storm came along."
"The ashes were still warm, then?" queried Allan, knowing that to be the logical way a forest ranger always learns about how long past a fire has burned out, or been extinguished.
"They were, and I could see that the brands had been torn apart, showing that some one was in a hurry to keep its light from betraying the fact of any person being camped on Sturgeon Island."
"Just what I'd think myself, Thad."
"After I saw that there was a cabin," continued the scout-master, "I wondered whether I had better take chances, and crawl up close enough to hear what they were saying, if so be there were men there. Before I had gone far in that scheme I realized that it was a little too risky, because I could hear a moving about, as though several men might be passing in and out. I also caught an occasional low muttering tone; but the noise of the waves dashing against the rocks, and the rattling of the branches of the trees that overhung the lone cabin, kept me from catching more than a single word now and then.
"After listening for quite a while I thought you would be getting anxious about my staying so long; and as I couldn't get any real satisfaction out of the game by hanging around any longer, why, I made up my mind to clear out. I'd learned several things, anyway, and by putting our heads together thought we might get at the meat in the cocoanut."
Of course that was a neat way of admitting that he wanted to talk matters over with his best chum, on the supposition that "two heads are better than one." Allan took it that way, for had he not on numberless occasions done just about the same thing?
"Of course you couldn't tell how many of these men there were, Thad?" he asked.