So talking, the two boys hurried on through the woods and along the brook where the deer had first been sighted. The sun was now fairly high in the heavens, and the day promised to be an unusually warm one.
At last they reached the tree from which the carcass of the big buck had been suspended. Both stared up into the branches in wide-eyed amazement.
The carcass of the buck was gone.
CHAPTER XIV
ON THE TRAIL OF A THIEF
“The buck is gone!”
It was Joe who gasped out the words, after several seconds of painful silence.
“Yes, but to where?” came from Harry. “That meat didn’t walk off by itself.”
“Perhaps some wild animal carted it away, Harry.”
“If so, it was a pretty big animal, and we had best look out for our own hides, Joe.”
Both looked around the spot, and up the brook, but neither man nor beast was in sight.