“Let me remind you,” answered Cal in his most elaborate manner of mock-serious speaking, “that I am in nowise called upon to assume responsibility for the vagaries of a casually encountered spring. I did not bring up that spring. I had no part in its early education or training. Presumably it is even my superior in age and experience. In any case, I feel myself powerless to control or even to influence its behavior. Moreover, I feel as keen a disappointment as you can in the fact that we shall have to abandon our search for knowledge of the purposes of our neighbor with the game leg. But it is not certain that we shall have to sail away with that inquiry unfinished. It will take a considerable time to fill our water kegs, and in the meanwhile we may penetrate the mystery sooner than we expect. Anyhow, we’ll see what we shall see to-night.”
XI
PERILOUS SPYING
At Dick’s suggestion the boys cut a number of larger logs than usual and placed them on their camp fire that evening before setting out on their expedition.
“It will avert suspicion of what we are at,” Dick said in explanation of his proposal. “So long as the camp fire burns up brightly nobody seeing it from a distance will doubt that we are here. It isn’t much trouble, anyhow.”
The night proved to be an unusually dark one, with an overcast sky, threatening rain, and on the chance of that Cal rigged up the largest tarpaulin the company owned and so arranged it as to conduct all the water that might fall upon it into the bait pail and such other receptacles as would hold it. “If it rains hard,” he explained, “we’ll catch enough water before morning to fill both the kegs.”
Going to the big gum tree, Tom climbed to the top of it to see if he could discover anything the little company might want to know. After a careful scrutiny of the landscape to the west he came down again, reporting that everything was quiet “in the region of our late visitor’s country seat.”
Then the party set out on their exploring expedition. Tom, acting as guide, followed the little blind trail, while the rest made their way through the undergrowth on either side, keeping near enough to the trail to hear even a whispered warning or direction if Tom should have need to give any such.