Morning showed them some drops of blood, and marks in the soft earth that were undoubtedly the tracks of a big bear.
“Oh, if we can only get him!” exclaimed Dick, with enthusiasm. “Maybe he’s worse wounded than we think.”
But though they tramped about nearly all that day they did not come upon any traces of bruin, and they had to give up the chase, though they did so reluctantly.
“Well, Tom,” remarked Jack that night, as they sat about the campfire after supper, “this isn’t treasure-hunting very fast.”
“No, that’s so. I’ve been sort of holding off, hoping I’d happen to think of some solution to that plan, but I haven’t. How about you fellows?”
“Nothing doing as far as I’m concerned,” said Jack, as he limped over to the water pail. He was much better and the soreness was almost gone.
“Two more to hear from,” suggested Tom.
“I can’t think of anything,” admitted Bert, and Dick confessed to the same thing.
“Then I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” proposed Tom. “We’ll take another trip to the old mill.”
“And do what?” asked Jack.