“What’s the matter?” asked Ned. “Did you see another bear, Bart?”
“I thought I heard some one walking around,” was the answer. “It’s snowing again. I don’t see any one.”
He went back to bed, every one sleeping more in comfort now that the tent was warmer. In the morning, Bart was the first one up, and he opened the tent flap. As he looked out, noting that the sun was shining, though the weather was cold, the lad uttered a cry of astonishment.
“What’s the matter?” asked Fenn, pausing in his dressing operations.
“Some one was sneaking around last night!” declared Bart. “See the footprints!”
The campers rushed from the tent in various stages of negligee, and stared at a track of human footprints, clearly visible in the new-fallen snow.
“Whoever it was he came close to our tent, and was evidently going to look in, when I must have frightened him off by getting up to put wood on the fire,” said Bart.
“Who was it?” asked Ned.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” responded Bart, “only it was some one who evidently wanted to get away unobserved. Look, you can trace where he came out of the woods, approached our tent very cautiously, and then, when I frightened him, he took it on the run.” This was easy to confirm by the spaces between the footprints, for when the midnight visitor had approached slowly and stealthily the marks were comparatively close together, but where he had run they were far apart.