The boy looked within a radius of a few feet, then looked up at the hunter.
"Where's the stump?" repeated the old man.
Wilbur turned back and searched for five minutes. Not a stump could he find that fitted the tree. None had been cut for some time, and none at all of so small a girth.
"I can't find any," he admitted shamefacedly, afraid that the Ranger would prove him wrong in some way.
"Nor can I," said Rifle-Eye. "Well?"
"Then I guess there isn't one there," said the boy.
"How did the tree get there?"
Wilbur looked at him, reflecting the question that he saw in the other's eyes.
"It couldn't get there of itself," he said, "and it was cut, too."
"An' wheel-tracks?"