Jack shrugged his shoulders. “The numbers on the plane. It might come in handy sometime.”
The plane disappeared into the horizon and the boys resumed their breakfast. For a while they discussed whether the airplane appearing overhead had any connection with the stranger of the previous night. The arguments for and against were about evenly divided. Then Paul opened the discussion by remarking casually, “Well, fellows, do you think we ought to break camp and move?”
William was the first to object. “What for?” he wanted to know.
Wallace explained. “We all know,” he said, “that the stranger who was here last night must have good reason for wanting us to move away from here. Whatever it may be, it is most advisable for us to go away.”
“But this is a good camp site,” argued William, “so why should we go away. Nobody is going to harm us.”
“Last night you thought differently,” Jack reminded him.
“All right, what I want to do is stick around and see what happens,” he confessed.
“If you do that, you might regret it,” warned Paul. A few of the boys gasped, and he hurried to explain his statement. “What I mean,” he added, “is that you don’t wait until your car is stolen before you lock the garage. I’m sure no harm would come to us if we stayed here, but why stay here and wait for someone to come and kick us when we can avoid it?”
He spoke with a certain anxiety and he transmitted it to the other boys, for they kept silent for a while. Ken, however, sided with William and he remarked, “Paul is perfectly logical and reasonable, but I still don’t see why we should run away. Nothing has happened to us and I imagine that the stranger last night was some crank who has a shack somewhere around here.”