While this talk was going on Sam and Tom were following some footprints leading from the clearing where the signal board had been found down a small path toward the lake. The footprints were clearly defined.
"The prints are not very large," observed Tom, as he and his brother measured them. "It looks to me as if Dan Baxter's feet might have made them."
"Certainly they weren't made by old Crabtree," said Sam. "He had a very long foot and always wore square-toed boots."
They followed the prints down to the lake shore, and then along the rim of the lake for nearly half a mile.
Here there was a little cove, and under some bushes they discovered some marks in the wet dirt of the bank, as if a rowboat had been moored there. In this dirt the footprints came to an end.
"That's the wind-up of this trail," sighed Tom. "Water leaves no trail."
"That's so. But supposing we skirt the lake some more."
They went on, and did not give up until the declining sun told them the day was done.
When they reached the Hall they found that all of the others had come in, and that preparations were already going forward for the feast in the evening. For once Captain Putnam and George Strong, his main assistant, were going to allow the cadets to have their own way. Secretly the captain was tremendously pleased over the showing his pupils had made on the football field, for this happened to be a year when college athletics were in the ascendancy in all of the States.
But the regular evening drill must not be neglected, and soon the sound of the drum was heard, calling the members of companies A and B to the parade ground. A rush was made for uniforms, swords, and guns, and soon the boys come pouring forth, Dick as a captain, and his two brothers as under officers.