If there was any unpleasant duty to be performed Thad Brewster could be depended on to go about it without flinching. He would have made a fine soldier, because discipline was so much a part of his nature.
“There, follow those three trees that run as straight a line as if some surveyor had a planted the same for range finders. D’ye see that light bunch of scrub just beyond? All right, look just to the left, and——”
“I see it!” said Thad, quietly.
A dozen seconds of dreadful suspense followed. Then Step Hen, who had managed to recover his lost breath, broke forth with:
“Is it Bumpus, Thad?”
“I don’t believe so,” replied the scoutmaster, steadily, and it could easily be seen that he must have just been under a terrible strain.
“What makes you say that; I’m asking for information, but all the same I’m awful glad to hear you make that remark,” Giraffe observed.
“In the first place it doesn’t seem to be the color of our chum’s clothes,” Thad began, “and then, on the other hand, it’s certainly too big to be him.”
“Guess you hit the nail on the head there, Thad,” Giraffe hastened to declare; “now that I look closer, I reckon it is just too big.”
“Mebbe it’s only a rock after all, or an old stump,” suggested Step Hen.