“Long Gun would never come,” said Jack. “He’s too much afraid of bad spirits. No, boys, we’ll have to solve this ourselves, if it’s to be solved at all.”
The boys walked around the little level place, whereon there was the mute evidence of some terrific struggle.
“The queer part of it is,” said Sam, “that the footsteps of the men don’t seem to go anywhere, nor come from anywhere. Look, they begin here, and they end over there, as if they had dropped down from the clouds and had gone up again on the back of the big bird.”
Jack looked more thoughtful. As Sam had said, there were no marks of the men coming or going, and they could not have reached the level place, nor departed from it, without leaving some marks in the tell-tale snow.
“I give it up!” exclaimed Jack. “Let’s get back to camp. It’s getting late.”
They started, talking of nothing on the way but the mystery, and becoming more and more tangled the more they discussed it.
It was getting dusk when they came in sight of the camp fire, and they saw Budge and the Indian busy at something to one side of the blaze.
“I wonder what they’re up to now?” said Jack.
“Oh, probably Budge is teaching Long Gun how to chew gum,” was Nat’s opinion.