“Oh, we don’t want to give up yet,” answered Dave. “Why, it isn’t much after ten o’clock. We can stay out till noon, at least.”
“I’d stay out all day, if I thought we could catch him,” returned the shipowner’s son, promptly.
Presently the boys espied a small stone house, standing beside a brook which flowed through the woods into the river. In the house lived an old man who made his living by making baskets and fancy articles of birch bark.
“Let us see if old Herick is around,” suggested Dave. “He may be able to tell us something.”
They found the old man hard at work on a fancy basket. He looked surprised when thus suddenly confronted by the students.
“Did I see a wild man?” he queried, in reply to their question. “I guess I did,—at least he acted queer enough. He danced up here, made a deep bow, and told me the army would be along 263 in four minutes. Then he made another bow and walked off, as stiff as a drum-major.”
“When was this?” demanded Dave.
“About half an hour ago.”
“And which way did he go?” put in Phil, eagerly.
“That way,” and the old basket-maker pointed up the brook. “Walked right in the water, too. I was going to follow him at first but then I didn’t think it was any use.”