“We’ll be back as soon as we have shot something to eat,” promised Bart.
It was rather lonesome in camp for Fenn, after his chums had left. At first he sat in front of the tent, watching the antics of some squirrels who, emboldened by hunger, came quite close to pick up crumbs. Fenn scorned to shoot at them.
“I think I’m strong enough to take a little walk,” decided the youth, after an hour or so of idleness. “It will do me good. Besides, I want to get a line on just where that cliff is, on which we saw the queer men.”
He started off, and found he had regained nearly all his former strength. It was a fine day, and pleasant to stroll through the woods.
Fenn wandered on, aiming for the lake, which was some distance away from where the tent was pitched. Suddenly, as he was going through a little glade, he heard a noise on the farther side of the clearing, as though some one had stepped on, and broken, a tree branch. Looking quickly up he saw, half screened by a clump of bushes, two Chinamen, and a white man.
The odd trio, whose advance had alarmed Fenn, stopped short. Then one of the Celestials muttered some lingo to the other. An instant later the three drew back in the bushes, and Fenn could hear them hurrying away.
“I’m on the track of the smugglers!” he exclaimed. “I’m going to follow them and see where they go! I must be nearer the cliff than I thought.”
Off Fenn started, after the three men. If he had known what lay before him he would have hesitated a long time before doing what he did. But Fenn did not know.