"I think we had better run this trail out a bit, fellows," remarked the patrol leader; "and see what he was after. It seems to have come from along the shore of the lake, and struck up the rise about here. What say, Wallace?"
"I'm with you all right," came the immediate reply from the one addressed; "It will give us some exercise, and experience; because once he strikes the rocks we'll have to be pretty smart not to lose him."
Accordingly they all bent their heads low over the spot where that plain print of the boot was to be seen.
"Say, do you know what this makes me think of?" demanded Bobolink.
"Not elephants, panthers, or two-legged men, of course!" chuckled Jack.
"Oh! rats!" expostulated his fellow scout. "Come off your perch, Jack, and talk sense. You make me think of an old Polly, just able to repeat things over and over. But to see us all down on our knees staring at that trail made me remember the alarm of poor old Robinson Crusoe when he found the footprint of the cannibal on his island."
"Well, the comparison isn't so bad—for you, Bobolink," observed Jack; "because while we haven't got an island that we can call our own, we seemed to be the only campers on this lake;
and to discover that there is another fellow on the spot ready to dispute our claim makes us feel that we've been taken in and done for. But there goes Paul."
The scout leader was indeed moving off. Still bending low, and making positive of every step, he kept advancing slowly but steadily. When there was the least doubt he asked Wallace for his opinion; for two heads sometimes prove better than one.
Presently they came to where the rocks began to stand out. Here the difficulties increased at a surprising rate, for the impressions were very faint indeed. Still Paul eagerly continued his labor, because there was a fascination about it for him. He dearly loved to solve any puzzle, no matter how bewildering; and in these dimly defined traces of a man's upward progress he found that he had a problem worthy of his very best efforts.