“You know we decided that he must be sick or something like that,” Allan pursued.
“They were coming straight at the cabin when our guard turned them around, and sent ’em flyin’,” Giraffe put in. “That looks like they wanted to see if we’d disturbed that stuff any. I guess they’re gettin’ rather nervous about our hangin’ out here so long. It sorter interferes with their plans, p’raps.”
“Well,” Allan observed, drily, “they’ll see us getting out of here to-morrow, if they keep their eyes open, which we hope will be the case. And then perhaps this Charlie Barnes and his two cronies will think they’re safe in entering the old cabin.”
“And putting up at the woods’ tavern for a time, feedin’ off our nice venison, to beat the band,” grumbled Giraffe, who never could forgive the hobo outfit for depriving the scouts of that young buck.
“I wonder, now,” piped up Bumpus, “if the chief means to start in tracking these two men tonight? He’s thrown a good scare into ’em, seems; and they’re running yet, I just reckon; but he gave ’em back the shot they fired at Thad and Eli and Davy here. That’s the way we pay back our debts. All good scouts are supposed to settle when they owe anything, ain’t they? What’s Thad doing now, I wonder?”
“What do you take us for, Bumpus?” demanded Giraffe. “Don’t you understand that Thad said he wanted us to do things with as little risk as we could? And then, to think we’d try to foller up these hard cases, holdin’ a lantern, just to ask ’em to bang away at us as much as they pleased. We ain’t that green. The other plan promises to work best, and you see if Thad don’t stick by it.”
“Well,” said the fat boy plaintively, “How was I to know what they’d expect to be doin’? And when you’re puzzled what to think, ain’t it policy to just hold off, and fight for wind? That’s what I was adoin’ when I said that. But Thad is lookin’ for something again, because he’s movin’ off with the lantern.”
Not wishing to be left in the dark, all the others followed Thad and Sebattis, both of whom seemed to be searching industriously along the ground, as if they had lost something which was worth looking for.
“P’raps they got a notion one of them fellers might a dropped somethin’,” suggested Step Hen, himself unable to grasp the true meaning of the strange actions of the two ahead.
“You’re closer to it than you think,” was the puzzling remark of Allan; while old Eli and young Jim seemed too amused by the remark.