"Well, er, since you put it to me that way, Ned, I guess, after all it must have been imagination. You see my brain was filled with all sorts of stuff, and when that gun went bang! it struck me I was being fired at, so I ducked and something went 'sh! 'sh! just then, so's to make me get mixed up for a minute, and think it was flying lead. I know now it was one of them little snipe zipping past. They fooled me a few times a while ago, too."
"I knew that it must be a mistake," said Ned, "for a very good reason. You noticed that shot was a long ways off, perhaps as far as a quarter of a mile. Well, how in all creation could the shooter see us down here, when we can't glimpse a solitary thing sixty yards off? It was some hunter, more than likely, getting meat for the mining camp."
"Another narrow squeak for you, Jimmy," remarked Teddy, with a touch of fine scorn in his voice. "Everything seems to be coming your way nowadays."
"Huh! then let's hope those canoes and blankets and grub will follow suit; for it'd sure tickle me to be able to restore the same to the right owners. I keep on hopin' that Ned here won't think of leavin' this neck of the woods without makin' a real des'prate effort to recover what we lost."
Ned did not take the bait, and proclaim what his intentions might be; though it went without saying that he would have been just as glad to see their stolen property returned as the next one.
"If that 'coon' happened to come down to the bay along here, wouldn't he run across our trail?" asked Frank.
"Perhaps so," Ned replied, "but we have to take our chances there. You see we couldn't waste the time to try and hide it all the while. Let's hope that if he does come on our tracks, he'll think they've been made by some of his friends up at the camp."
"All the same," advised Jimmy, "I'm going to keep my eye peeled for any sign of the chappie. After doing the great stunts we have already, it'd be a shame to have our plans knocked galley-west through a blunder, or an accident."
"No shooting at anything you happen to think must be a man aiming a gun," was what the leader told Jimmie; for such a thing had really happened on a former occasion, causing much embarrassment to Jimmy, and almost breaking up the clever plan of his superior.
"Wish I may die if I do," mumbled the other, always ready to give all the assurance desired, even though unable to sustain the position thus taken.