Elmer expected some such result as this, so after all he did not seem to be very much staggered.
"I suppose by 'them' you mean the chicken thieves, Johnny?" he remarked.
"No other."
"But if the man has been moving around in the swamp for a couple of weeks, more or less, could he do without a boat all that time?" continued the leader.
"I guess he cud, Elmer, though w'en yuh wants tuh trap muskrats yuh need sum sort o' craft the wust kind. P'raps he didn't chanct tuh run across our skiffs up tuh last night. Then agin mebbe he was askeered tuh snatch one, fur fear we'd hunt arter it, an' bother him in the swamp."
"All right, Johnny, I believe you're barking up the proper tree," said Elmer; "but it looks as if the man changed his mind last night, and took a boat."
"Yep, an' by gosh! the newest one o' the lot, too!" groaned the bound boy, as he led them closer to where the other skiffs floated, secured to stakes.
"After all that row," suggested Lil Artha, "it might be they thought we'd give a quick chase, and they couldn't afford to take any more chances. So as a boat'd come in handy for them they gobbled it."
"Anybody'd pick the best in the bunch, come to that," added wise Toby.
"I don't know about that," Mark went on to say; "a really smart fellow would be apt to reason that if he took only the old tub the owner mightn't think it worth while to make much of a hunt for it, not caring whether he got the same again or not."