“Why, he beckoned to me about the time I came out,” the scoutmaster remarked, “and told me he was going to take a little turn along the trail of that man. He hasn’t come back yet; so I guess he’s been able to follow it some distance.”
“That sounds real woodsy now,” declared Giraffe. “Following the trail for me. I’m struck on everything that seems like Cooper’s Leatherstocking. Wonder whether he c’n keep it right up till he drops in on the crowd? P’raps they ain’t so very far away from here, after all.”
“But I just saw Sebattis pass the window; there he is comin’ in right now,” observed Step Hen.
The dusky-skinned guide was indeed entering the door. And no one could tell by looking at his inscrutable face whether Sebattis had met with success or disappointment in his recent labors.
From the fact of his coming back so soon Thad rather imagined that the latter must be the case. He knew the Indian would volunteer no explanation unless asked questions; and so Thad managed to corner him while he was fixing his elkskin moccasins over by the fire. When presently the patrol leader came back to the rest of the scouts, he was greeted by numerous demands that he communicate what he had learned.
“Sebattis followed the tracks for some distance,” Thad went on to say, as he poured himself another cup of coffee; “but after the fellow got a certain distance from the cabin, he began to be more cautious. It was just as if he thought some one might want to follow him, and he did not mean they should succeed. At any rate, he covered his tracks so that even Sebattis was unable to find the trail again.”
“Then it’s sure a fact that the hobo must be some woodsman himself,” Giraffe declared. “I thought an Indian could follow the trail of a fox, if he wanted.”
“Well, Sebattis said he was willing to go back again, and try further, and that he believed he could find the trail again; but he wanted to make sure first that we cared enough about it. From certain remarks he had heard some of us make, he thought we didn’t care to make the acquaintance of the rascals. We even said, you may remember, fellows, that we hadn’t lost any hoboes that we knew of, and didn’t mean to go out of our way to find any. And so Sebattis came back to report.”
“What did you tell him, Thad?” asked Step Hen.
“Why,” replied the other, “that so long as they didn’t interfere with us, we had no reason to bother our heads about these men. We had plenty of things on hand, as it was, without trying burglar catching. If they only let us alone, and didn’t run across our path, we’d forget there were any such chaps in the Maine woods.”