"Well," answered Will, "the principal reason why I didn't tell you the whole story in Chicago is that I didn't care to clutter your minds up with a puzzling proposition which might be solved in a moment at the end of the journey. I expected to find Garman and the plans in this cottage. In that case, I should have shipped the plans back to Chicago and we should have gone with our playful little vacation under the North Star."
"Then you wouldn't have told us anything about the plans or the robbers?" questioned Sandy.
"Certainly not," was the reply. "You see, boys," Will went on, observing the injured look on the faces of his chums, "we've always been mixed up in some mystery, ever since the day we started out to visit the Pictured Rocks of Old Superior. So I thought you might like one trip free of puzzles and excitements."
"Don't you never permit us to lose sight of a mystery!" exclaimed George. "I eat mysteries three times a day, and then dream of mysteries at night! And Sandy," he went on, "just gets fat on mysteries!"
"All right," Will agreed. "If you want to tie your intellect all up into knots studying out such Sherlock Holmes puzzles as come to me, I have no objections."
"Well, we've found the cottage," George observed presently, "but we haven't found the man."
"Perhaps Bert Calkins found him," contended Will.
"Do you really think the miner is still hanging around this cabin?" asked Sandy. "Do you think he is the man who gave Bert the clout on the head? If you do think so, we'd better keep a sharp lookout."
"Garman wouldn't know anything about our coming here after the plans!" suggested George.
"Any man who steals another man's invention, or tries to steal it, will go to almost any length to protect the thing he has stolen. Even if Garman had no previous knowledge of our visit to this place our arrival here would at once excite his suspicions."