For a few days after Ted’s talk there was no further trouble of any kind in the camp. Neither was there any further annoyance upon the part of the person or persons who had kept them in an unsettled state of mind for so long. After a time the boys began to feel that the person had tired of the contest and had gone away, for the time being, at least.
After the third day of peace one of the boys discovered that the skeleton had vanished from the hollow back of the camp. They had watched it each day to discover if possible the owner of the weird thing, but apparently during one of the slack periods of watching the owner had come and taken it. This was a relief in one sense and not in another.
“We’ve had somebody hiding in the bushes and watching that thing almost every day,” Ted said to Buck, as they sat apart one day. “But on the very first day that we didn’t have somebody, away it went. That looks as though whoever planted the thing knows our movements pretty well.”
“He probably knows more about us than we’d like him to,” was Buck’s comment.
They had been to a farm house nearby to purchase butter, eggs and milk and Ted had asked concerning a Doctor Hemple. No one knew the man or had ever heard of him.
“Our local doctor’s name is Ord,” said the farmer. “Where’d you hear of this Hemple?”
“Oh, we both know him by name and just wondered if he came from up this way,” Ted passed it off.
Buck told of the cabin with the barbed wire and the farmer knew something, though not much about it. The owner was a mystery to everyone, he said.
“He built that cabin nigh onto four years ago, and he’s a mighty unfriendly critter,” related the farmer, as he tied up their packages. “I come through there once from huntin’ and I had my dog with me. Dog run up to the cabin—the barbed wire fence wasn’t finished then—and that feller was settin’ in some kind of a fancy cheer there. No sooner’d that man see my dog than he popped out o’ his cheer and chased him out of the yard like he was the plague. ‘Dog won’t hurt you, mister,’ I says ‘he’s a mighty friendly dog.’ ‘Don’t keer if he is!’ yells back the man, ‘don’t want dogs or humans on my property. What you think I’m puttin’ up a barbed wire fence for?’ ‘Well, mister,’ I sez, ‘not wishin’ you any hard luck or nothin’, I’d like to have a couple of thousand wild hogs to chase across your front yard!’ That’s the way I felt, too!”
“He must be an unsociable party,” grinned Buck.