“Or the river,” suggested Giraffe, with a sly glance toward Bumpus, who flashed him back a scornful look.
“My opinion is, fellows,” observed Allan, who thus far had not taken any part in the earnest discussion, “that these things might never have been lost at all.”
“Oh! then you think they hid ’em here?” asked Step Hen.
“Either that, or else just tossed them away, to get rid of carrying such a heavy package any longer,” the Maine boy went on. “Such men would never come up here to camp out, or to hunt. Only one thing would be apt to tempt them to dive into the woods like this; they expected to be hunted, and are on the way to the Canada border as fast as they can pack.”
Somehow, the idea seemed to please the rest of the scouts; and even Jim and Eli nodded their heads, as though they quite agreed with Allan, after he had evolved the suggestion, which likely enough would have never occurred to them.
“Say, d’ye suppose, now,” Giraffe asked, “that these jail birds could have cracked a crib before they took to the woods?”
“Well, just as like as not,” answered Allan; “though we can’t tell that so easy. They must have tried to get away with some loot, though, and found the officers hot after them. So, to escape being caught they’ve taken to the woods.”
“But that might be jumpin’ from the frying-pan into the fire,” Davy declared. “If they happened to be greenhorns, now, it’d be apt to go hard with ’em up here, with the winter comin’ on, p’raps no blankets along, and only a little grub. Huh! they might even wish they’d let the officers ketch ’em. Three meals, such as they are in jail, are better than nothin’ to eat in the wilderness.”
“Oh!” Allan went on to say, “the chances are, they had a fellow along who knew more or less about what to do in the woods, and what not to do; because you see, they seemed to get up this far all right.”
“What if there was a big reward out for their capture, and we managed to crowd the bunch to the wall?” suggested Bumpus, enviously. “Say, we’d be fixed then for a lot more of outings, wouldn’t we, fellers?”