“And we’ll save our bouquets till Zip throws up the sponge,” said Mike, “or rather until I tries me hand with the intilligint canine.”
Instead of leaving the bungalow from the rear, Hoke walked deliberately down the eastern steps, and sauntered off where he was in plain sight of all until he entered the wood which approached to within a few rods of the lake. He had given no one a hint of the scheme he had in mind, but the feeling was general that whatever its nature it was original, and more than one-half suspected he might outwit the remarkable dog. In this list we must not include George Burton.
Now Hoke had learned that it was useless to try to throw Zip off the scent by any such artifices as young Rothstein had used. As the guest declared, the tracker had not bothered the dog to the slightest extent. It therefore would be folly for the second fugitive to repeat the experiment. He had no thought of doing so.
Mention has been made in the preceding pages of a brook which ran near the home of Uncle Elk. After a devious course this emptied into Gosling Lake at a point about halfway between the cabin and the bungalow. Hoke rested his hopes upon this little stream.
“Burton barred the lake,” chuckled the youth, “but he didn’t say anything of this stream, though I was awfully afraid he would. I guess he doesn’t know about it,—yes, he does, too, for he had to cross it on his way to the bungalow, but he forgot it. He can’t kick when he finds I have made his dog sing small.”
Allured by the single purpose, Hoke pushed straight on, turning neither to the right nor left. Recalling that he had shortened the time Zip was to wait, he broke into a lope. His build made him the fleetest runner in camp, and it did not take him long to reach the stream. He had crossed it so many times that the lower portion was familiar, and he turned as if to follow it to its source in the spring near Uncle Elk’s cabin.
He found it of varying width. It was so narrow where a regular path had been made by the passing back and forth of the hermit and his friends, that nothing in the nature of a bridge was used. A long step or a moderate jump served.
Nowhere did the depth seem to be more than a few inches, except where a pool or eddy occasionally appeared; but as Hoke Butler picked his way along the bank, he was pleased to note here and there a considerable expansion.
“That’s good!” he said to himself; “it will make it all the harder for that dog.”
He now put his scheme into operation. Without removing his shoes, he stepped into the brook, sinking halfway to his knees, and began walking up the bed of the stream. The water was as cold as ice, and he gasped at first, but became quickly accustomed to it. The bottom was so irregular that he progressed slowly, and more than once narrowly escaped falling. Here and there boulders protruded from the shore and he steadied himself by resting a hand upon them as he labored past. Those that rose from the bed of the stream itself and around which the current foamed, afforded convenient stepping stones and were turned to such use.