"You seem to have set your mind on that one explanation of their presence here; and I'll admit that this island would be a great half-way place to hide the smuggled goods on, till the right night came to run them across to the American shore; but perhaps you're barking up the wrong tree there, Allan!"
"Oh! I'll admit that when I call them smugglers I'm only guessing, because, so far as I know we haven't any sort of evidence looking that way. It only seems the most natural explanation of why they're so much afraid of us, believing as they seem to that we're connected with the Government, one side or the other, just on account of these Boy Scout uniforms, which I reckon they don't happen to be familiar with. But Thad, you're holding something back; I can tell that by the way you act. You learned more than you've told me so far; own up to that."
The young scout-master chuckled. He liked to spring little surprises once in a while. It was just like tapping a peg until he had it set in the ground to suit his fancy; and then with one master-stroke driving it home. He had whetted Allan's curiosity now, and the time had come to satisfy it.
"Yes," Thad went on to say, "there was one little discovery I made that gave me certain information, and it was strong enough to convince me that our earlier suspicions about smugglers and all that sort of thing were away off the track."
"Yes, go on, please, Thad."
"It struck me while I was lying there not so very far away from that shanty hidden among the rocks and brushwood. Most of the time the wind was blowing on my left side, but every little while there would come a pucker or a flaw, causing it to change for just for a second or two. And it was when this happened the first time I got scent of what was in the wind, in a double sense. In other words, Allan, I discovered a distinct odor of fish in the air!"
"Oh! now I tumble to what you mean!" exclaimed the other.
"And every time that wind brought me a whiff of the fishy smell the stronger became my conviction that these men must be poachers, who knew they were breaking certain game laws by taking white fish or trout illegally, and reaping a harvest that honest fishermen were unable to reach. Stop and think if things don't point that way?"
And Allan did not have to hesitate in the least, for what his companion had just told him seemed to settle the matter beyond all dispute.
"Yes, Thad," he said, "now you've let the cat out of the bag there can't be any question about it. These half-breed Canadians are illegal fishermen, poachers they'd be called up in Maine; and they believe we've come to arrest the lot. It's a bad lookout for the Silver Fox Patrol; but we've seen worse, and always came out on top."