“But, say, we’ve forgotten one thing,” said Ned suddenly.
“What?” asked Bart.
“We haven’t looked for Fenn’s footprints. All along we’ve been paying attention to only the marks made by the Chink. Now where does Fenn come in? This Chinese fellow couldn’t carry him; could he?”
“Not unless the Chink was one of the gigantic Chinese wrestlers I’ve read about,” admitted Bart. “That’s so, Ned. We have forgotten all about Fenn’s footprints.”
The three boys looked at each other. In their anxiety at following the trail of the queer marks they had lost sight of the fact that they wanted a clue to Fenn, as well as to the smugglers.
“I suppose we’d better go back to camp and begin all over,” suggested Ned.
“No,” decided Frank, after a moment’s thought. “Let’s try these prints a little longer. Maybe they’ll lead us to some place where we can get on Fenn’s trail.”
The others agreed to this plan, and, once more, they took up the search. They had not gone far before Frank, who was again in the lead, called out:
“Here we are, fellows! This explains it!”
Ned and Bart hurried forward. They found that Frank had emerged upon a well-defined trail, that led at right angles to the one they had been following. But, stranger than that was what the trail showed.