"That's curious," remarked Bob, bending forward to examine the spot. "I wonder what it can be? It looks like the light on one of those luminous match-boxes that are made so that you can see them in the dark."
"They say that rotten wood sometimes has that effect——"
"But this tree is quite sound. And see! There's another the same on that tree to the right!"
It was certainly strange, and the boys picked up their guns and sauntered over to examine the next trunk, on which they found the same peculiar light attracting an equally numerous lot of moths of many descriptions.
"There's another!" exclaimed Alf, pointing ahead of him.
"And another!"
"And another!"
By this time the boys were quite excited by their discovery, and when Alf suddenly drew attention to the further discovery that the marked trees were almost in a straight line, their excitement was still further stirred.
"It's the strangest thing I ever heard of—in the natural history way," the younger lad said. "To find all these trees marked on the same side, and all in a straight line—why, it would puzzle the brains of anybody to explain it!"
Without any decided plan, and more out of curiosity than from any other motive, the chums proceeded from one tree to another, examining each as they reached it, and marvelling all the time at what they decided as being one of the most remarkable freaks of Nature that they had ever heard about.