“Why, I haven’t seen it, Stumpy.” Bart’s voice had the ring of innocence.
“Then you hid it, Frank.”
“Not on your life. I’ve got too good an appetite.”
“Then Ned must have put it somewhere. Tell us, Ned.”
“Search me!” cried Ned, earnestly. “I never touched it, Stumpy. Where did you put it when you went to bed?”
“In the cook tent, high up on a box. Some of you fellows must have taken it, for snow fell in the night, and there wasn’t a track going into the tent when I came out here. You fellows took it before you came in to bed. Own up, now!”
“I didn’t!” declared Bart, and the others asserted their innocence.
“Well, somebody has it!” insisted Stumpy, earnestly. “The meat pie is gone, and it was a dandy, too!”
His distress was evident. The other lads, likewise, felt the loss of their chief breakfast dish. Stumpy looked at them with an eye of suspicion, but they gazed frankly back at him.
“That mysterious man——” began Frank.