“And did you see the tramps in camp cleaning things out then?” asked Felix.
“Well, no, not exactly,” replied Billy; “the most I thought I saw was something moving in the bushes on the other side of the camp; and yes, it was just like a laugh too that I caught.”
“What did you do?” asked Josh.
“I wondered if those wild dogs had come back,” said the guardian of the camp, “and the first thing I thought to do was to put the pan of fish I’d cleaned up in the crotch of a tree. Then I went to the camp, and oh! my stars I but it was in an awful mess, with things flung around, and most of our eatables taken, as well as the frying-pan and coffee-pot!”
“Oh! that’s sure the limit!” groaned Josh. “We’ll never be able to keep on our hike with nothing to eat or drink, and not a pan to cook stuff in, even if we bought it from the farmers. It spells the end, fellows!”
“Yes,” echoed George, always seeing the worst side of things, “we’ll have to go back to town like dogs with their tails between their legs, and have all the other fellows make fun of us.”
“Hold on there, fellows, don’t show the white feather so easily,” said Tom, who was looking very determined.
“Do you mean there’s any chance for us to keep going, after our things have been taken in this way?” demanded George.
“Well, we can talk that over to-night, and then see what Mr. Witherspoon has to say about it when he joins us in the morning,” Tom told him. “As for me, I’d be willing to go on half rations rather than own up beat. How do we know but that this raid on our stuff was made just to force us to give up our hike?”
“Why, how could that be?” asked Billy Button, wonderingly.