As we have already heard Thad tell Allan about his first, seeing the man who was spying upon the camp; and later on how he came to find the hidden boat, as well as the concealed cabin, there is no necessity for us to follow the scout-master while he imparts this information to the quartette who, having been absent from that interview, had no previous knowledge of the facts.
By the time he spoke of crawling silently away, and coming back to join the balance of the patrol, he had his chums worked up to a feverish pitch of excitement.
"Well," Step Hen was the first to break in with, "anyhow, game-fish poachers ain't quite so bad as smugglers would have been, and that's one satisfaction, I take it."
"But they're bad enough," urged Davy; "because they must be breaking the laws by taking fish in some way that ain't allowed. And if trapped they stand a chance to face a heavy fine, or a long sentence in jail, perhaps both. And if, as Thad says, they've got the silly idea in their heads that we're connected with the Canadian militia, and came here meaning to destroy their nets, and likewise haul the men over the coals, why, they'll either skedaddle and leave us marooned on old Sturgeon for keeps, or else do something worse."
"What sort of worse, Davy?" demanded Bumpus. "There you go again, saying things in a sort of half-cooked way, and leaving the rest to a fellow's wild imagination. Do you mean you believe they'd really hurt us, when we ain't so much as lifted a finger to do the bunch any harm? Speak out and tell us, now, you old croaker."
"Thad, what do you think they might do?" Davy asked, under the impression that he would be wise to leave the explanation of the matter to one who was more capable of handling it than he could possibly be.
"If they were sensible men," remarked the other, deliberately, as though he had given that particular thought much attention, "I wouldn't be afraid, because then we could reason with them, and explain that we were only a party of the Boy Scouts of America, off on a little cruise, and shipwrecked in the storm; also, that if they helped us in any way we'd just forget that we'd ever seen them here."
"But explain and tell us what you mean by hinting that they mightn't be sensible men?" remarked Step Hen.
"Oh! well, that was my way of putting it," Thad went on to say; "I meant that as near as I could guess they seem to be Canadian half-breeds, for some of their talk was in a French patois I couldn't just understand. And I've always heard that those kind of men are mighty hard to handle, because, like Italians they get furiously excited, and let their imaginations run away with them, like some other fellows I happen to know."
"Did you say there, were only three of this bad crowd, Thad?" Giraffe asked.