“Well, I’ve been turning it all over in my mind,” continued Dick, frankly, “and have come to the conclusion that he must have seen something. Nat isn’t a timid chap by any means, as every one knows; and if you watch him right now you’ll notice how he keeps looking to the right and left all the while he eats. He’s half expecting to have something jump out at him.”
“That’s right, as sure as you live,” admitted Leslie. “If things keep on like this much longer, Dick, our camping trip will be spoiled. Why, none of the fellows will care to wander into the woods, and before we came they had laid out all sorts of schemes that would take them there.”
“Yes, I know they had planned to explore every foot of Bass Island,” said Dick, moodily. “They’re beginning to care only for going out on the water.”
“Humph! a good reason why,” grunted Leslie. “That mysterious wild man can’t get them out there, it seems. Yes, just as you say it threatens to upset all our jolly plans. What’s got to be done about it, Dick? I’m ready to try anything you say.”
Dick scratched his head as if in deep thought.
“Well,” he remarked, finally, “of course one of the first things I did this morning was to get down on my hands and knees and examine the ground where Nat says he was sleeping when he woke up to see something jump over him.”
“And did you make any discovery worth while, Dick?”
A shake of the head answered this question even before Dick could frame words to reply.
“Why, no, I can’t say I did,” he went on to say. “The fact of the matter is the ground was so well tramped over that there couldn’t be any way of finding the footprints of the wild man, even if he did hop over Nat as he lay there. I had to give up in the end, and call it a bad job.”
“I’m sorry for that,” said Leslie, who apparently had begun to indulge in the hope that his clever friend might have come upon a clue.