“Well, that wouldn’t be so bad,” spoke Bony.
“I know why Jack want’swants to start back,” spoke Sam. “He is going to stop at Pryor’s Gap and see a certain party with brown eyes, who——”
Then Sam dodged to avoid the snowshoe which his chum threw across the tent at him.
“When are we going to make another try to discover the secret of the strange camp?” asked Nat when quiet was restored.
“That’s so. When?” asked Will. “We haven’t heard that queer noise lately.”
“We’ll see what we can do to-morrow,” answered Jack.
That night the lads were startled by again hearing that strange sound in the air over their camp. But this time it seemed farther away, and only lasted a short time, while Jack, who rushed out the moment he heard it, could discover nothing.
Jack, Nat, Sam, Bony and Will started off early the next morning on snowshoes for the top of the mountain, in accordance with a plan Jack had formed of trying to reach the camp of the men from a point directly back of the place whence they had been ordered away.
They reached the summit of the mountain and found, as Long Gun had said they would, a trail leading directly down. But it was so steep and so covered with snow that it seemed risky to attempt it.