Wallace hesitated. Finally he said, “Well, there’s a story behind it, some sort of mystery I never could make head or tail of.”
Jack perked up his ears. “What do you mean?” he inquired in a low tone of voice. “You never told us anything about it.”
The other boys were singing, and the echoes resounded far out across the mountain. The two whispered to each other. Wallace answered, “No, I didn’t, but that’s only because the story doesn’t seem to have any meaning and I didn’t want the fellows to think I was trying to put over a tall one on them.”
Jack became interested. Eagerly he asked, “Do you mind telling me the story?”
Wallace shook his head. “No, I don’t, but I warn you—there’s no sense to it all.”
“Well, let’s hear it anyhow,” said Jack urging his companion on.
Wallace twisted and turned and finally found a comfortable sitting position. He began his story by saying, “This camping ground is about three miles south east of the camping ground we usually go to. If you were particularly attentive, you would have noticed as we came here that this place is off the usual course followed by campers, is a little difficult to find and yet it appears to have been used frequently.”
Jack nodded, glanced at the fire and his companions, permitted his eyes to wander about the general extremities of the camp, then turned to his story teller and said, “Yes, but how did you come upon this camp site? Tell me that.”
Wallace betrayed a bit of uneasiness. He said, “I’m coming to that. Last year, camping up there”—he motioned with his hand—“I decided one morning to take a walk through the woods. There was no path, so I had to fight my way through bushes, shrubbery and all sorts of entanglements, until I came to a spot where the bushes were beaten down, a couple of low branches were broken off—there was every indication that on that spot a struggle had taken place between two or more people. I examined the ground very carefully for torn pieces of clothing and such things, and walking straight ahead I came upon the stream. Following the stream, I came upon this camp site.”