In less than a quarter of an hour the camp was vacant except for the cook, who was still busy preparing the evening meal. That was the only part that was hard to Roger, for he had been through a good deal of excitement since lunch and not only was tired, but also very hungry. His foot was not hurting so much now that he was not stepping on it and with his boot off, although it had puffed up rapidly after the removal of the boot. But to be up in the branches of a tree, as hungry as a wolf, and to see the grub below, was almost more than boy nature could stand.
Presently the cook, having laid out a loaf of bread and a knuckle of ham, picked up his ax and went into the brush to get a little more dry wood, which was somewhat scarce about the camp. Roger slipped down from the tree and seized the bread and ham. Then in order that it might not be suspected who had done it, he scrabbled on the tin plate with some mud, and in the stiffer soil about—for that was the reason it had been chosen for a camp,—he made some tracks with the first, second, and third knuckles of his hand and the mark of his thumb knuckle behind. At a little distance the track looked almost like fox tracks. By stepping carefully on tufts of grass he kept the marks of his own feet from being seen, and then, with his booty, he returned to the tree.
He was hardly more than safely ensconced among the branches when the cook returned. He busied himself about the fire with the wood that he had brought, then chancing to look at the dish, he saw that the hambone and the bread had gone. The cook, whose language was that of a woodsman, consigned all four-footed thieves to perdition, and then bent down to examine the tracks. He looked at them carefully several times over, then:
"I sure would like to see that beast critter," he said, "fer that's the most plumb foolish tracks I ever set eyes on. It must be fox—but there ain't no foxes in this kind o' country, and, anyhow, the tracks don't mate."
This was true, for Roger had made the tracks, both on the nigh and the off sides with the fingers of his right hand. The cook, after muttering and grumbling to himself, got out from his store of provisions enough for the meal, and proceeded to cook the same, not without many returns to the mysterious tracks and comments more or less audible on creatures with feet like that who were so apt at thieving.
Presently two of the party came in, shaking their heads negatively to the cook's questioning gesture.
"Nary a sign," said one of the men, "he's lost a good and plenty."
"I ain't got much time to help," said the cook, "though I'll go out with you after supper. But this spot has got me locoed."
"How's that?" asked one.
The cook pointed to the tracks.