Adele, though usually fearless, could feel her heart beating as she stood waiting, while Everett crept, oh, so still, toward the point of rocks. Suddenly he heard a digging noise which came from behind a bowlder. Stealing toward it, he cautiously peered over and beheld a sight which made even his brave heart beat quicker. A long-haired man, who was dressed in a bear’s skin, was digging in the ground among the rocks with feverish haste.
Suddenly he leaped up into the air, giving animal-like cries of joy. Then out of the hole which he had dug he lifted an iron box, which Everett could see was full of something which glittered.
“I must get the girls away from here at once,” Everett thought, as he stole back to Adele. To her he said hurriedly, “The man is evidently a miser who lives in this wild end of the island.”
Then, as they turned to go back to the place where they had left the others, he added, “Do you know there is something very strange about this? Camping parties are continually coming to Pine Island, and if there were a wild man living here, he would surely be seen by others and the fact become known.”
“That is true,” said Adele. “Then what do you think it may be?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Everett replied; “but having a little of the Sherlock Holmes instinct, I don’t believe that it is just what it seems.”
“Hark!” Adele cried, clutching Everett’s arm. “What was that?”
“It was the report of a gun, and there is another and another! Adele, this is certainly mysterious,” Everett said. “I am going to ferret it out. Will you go back to the girls?”
“I would like to go with you,” Adele replied.
“Then come,” the boy said. “We will creep along the shore and approach the point of rocks from this side.”