"Not even another lovely quarter to be picked up where it got spilled when they made 'em here, p'raps by the bushel," grumbled Bobolink, scratching the earth with his toe in vain.
He had recovered the coins from Paul, and jingled them in his pocket; though the envious Bluff warned him that they might get him into a peck of trouble, should he be caught by Secret Service men.
"Huh! guess you think you c'n scare me into droppin' them," declared Bobolink, thrusting out his chin at Bluff. "Let me know if you see me doin' it; will you? I c'n just see you falling all over yourself, tryin' to grab these dandy coins, if I let 'em slip by me. Shoot a ball up another alley, Bluff. Go hunt a fortune for yourself, and don't want to grab mine. Hands off, see?"
"Do we go back now, Paul; or had we better keep on to the hill?" Jack asked, as though he knew the other must have been settling this important matter in his mind.
"I think as we've come this far, with the hill just ahead of us, it would be a disappointment not to get up to that cedar tree," Paul replied; at which every one of the other scouts nodded his head.
"W-w-want to s-s-see what the old p-p-place l-l-looks like," remarked
Bluff, in his positive way.
"And there's no use in our staying around here any longer, either, I should think," ventured Phil. "How do we know but what some of the men may just happen to butt in on us, while we're looking their old forge over? And if they did, I just guess they'd make things hum for us. So I say, into the woods again for me—the sooner the better."
"I hope we're doing the right thing by keeping on," Paul observed, looking at his companions in a way they took as an invitation to back him up.
"Who's got a better right to go where we feel like?" demanded Bobolink.
"Honest men wouldn't have any kick coming, just because a troop of Boy Scouts happened to camp on their island; and it only goes to show they're doing something shady, that's what. I say go on," Phil gave as his opinion.