He immediately went and picked up the bearskin, and held it up before the admiring eyes of Thad and Davy, who immediately started to ask innumerable questions.
The story was by degrees told, and the late comers allowed to taste the beautiful honey. Thad declared he had noticed that Bumpus and Giraffe looked a little swollen about the head, but other things had kept him from asking the reason, up to now.
The hour was growing pretty late, but strange to say none of the scouts seemed to feel sleepy but Bumpus, who nodded occasionally as he sat there, trying to listen to the conversation that passed among his mates.
Thad had meanwhile been using his eyes to some advantage. He noticed that the stones about the hearth were rather large, and to his mind one of them had the appearance of having been recently disturbed. Suddenly getting up, as the fire burned low, and afforded him an opportunity to come near without being scorched, Thad worked away for a minute or so, trying to insert his fingers under this certain hearth stone.
“Here, try this for a lever, Thad,” remarked Allan, handing him a thick, short stick; for somehow he had quickly guessed what the other had in his mind, and was naturally intensely interested in the result.
So Thad, by inserting this under the stone, was enabled to raise it up. Breathlessly the others leaned forward to watch the result; for by now of course even the aroused Bumpus had guessed what Thad was doing.
The patrol leader seemed to be fumbling around in some sort of little cavity he had found under the hearth stone. Then, with an exclamation, he drew some object into view, and laid it on the floor. It seemed to be a bundle of old clothes; but when Thad, with eager hands, had unrolled these, the scouts held their very breath at the sight that met their astonished eyes.
Thad had figured it all out, and now they understood just why that leader of the yeggmen was so determined to get into the old abandoned cabin in the woods; he had hidden the proceeds of other robberies there, and wished to take it all along with him when he crossed over into a safe asylum in Canada.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE DUMMY PACKET.
Bumpus dug his knuckles into his eyes, and then stared again at the pile of plunder which had evidently been taken from some bank; for besides the little rolls that seemed to contain gold eagles, and half eagles, and fives, there were a number of packages of bank bills, and a lot of bonds—at least that was what the boys guessed they must be.