"No, I left it just as it was tied up."
The boy hunters looked blankly at one another. All gazed up and down the shore and across the lake.
"Maybe Ham Spink——-" began Snap.
"If he took our boat I'll—-I'll kick him full of holes!" cried Giant. He had not forgotten how Spink and his cronies had annoyed them in the past.
"I don't see any footprints around here," remarked the doctor's son, looking over the ground carefully.
"Here's a tree branch broken," said Whopper.
"They might have come in a boat and towed our craft away," suggested
Snap.
"Boys, I know why Wags barked during the night!" cried Giant. "He heard somebody at the boat."
"Yes, and we didn't know enough to come down here," added Snap bitterly. "If we had come we could have caught the boat-stealers redhanded."
A lively discussion followed, but it did nothing toward enlightening the boy hunters. The one fact remained that the boat and a large portion of the outfit were gone, and unless the craft could be recovered their outing would come to a premature finish.