“Yes,—and here sits one of them. Mike doesn’t seem to care to match with him.”
“There’s where you’re mistook, as Bridget Lanigan said whin she picked up a red hot poker thinking it was a ribbon she had dropped from her hair. Come, boys.”
Mike sprang from his seat and addressed Alvin and Chester. There was much chaffing as the three passed into the bungalow and out at the rear. Zip had taken his place beside his master’s chair, where he sat with his long tongue hanging far out, his mouth wide open, and his big ears dangling below his massive jaws. He manifested no further interest in what was going on around him, though he must have understood everything.
The agreement with Mike was that the dog should remain on the piazza with his master and the other scouts until a full hour should have passed. Then he was to be allowed to smell of a pair of shoes which the fugitive left behind him. These belonged to Alvin Landon, who had brought some extra footgear. They had been worn by Mike for several days when he replaced them with his own, which he had on at the time he left the bungalow. Thus far everything was plain and above board.
“I don’t know what Mike has up his sleeve,” remarked young Burton; “no doubt it is something ingenious, for he and his two chums have been whispering and chuckling a good deal together, but Zip will defeat him as sure as the sun is shining in the sky. You have noticed that my dog does very little baying,—or rather, Isaac and Hoke have noticed it.”
“But he gets there all the same,” laughed Rothstein; “I should like to know what plan Mike has in mind.”
“We shall learn when he comes back and we hear his story.”
Prompt to the minute, Burton directed the attention of Zip to the pair of shoes that had been placed on the ground at the foot of the steps.
“Find him,” was the command of his master, and the hound fairly bounded out of sight around the corner of the building. He bayed once as he picked up the scent, and then vanished like a bolt from a crossbow. The crowd of Boy Scouts resumed their chat and awaited as patiently as they could the issue of the novel test.
Meanwhile, Mike Murphy and his two chums set to work to carry out the scheme which they had formulated, and which each one was confident must result in the humiliation of the wonderful dog and his owner. With abundance of time at their command they did not hasten, but walked with a moderate pace to a point some two hundred yards from the bungalow. They had straggled along side by side, without trying to make their trail hard to follow, and now halted.