“Yes. You ought to remember him, Torry. He was all one summer at Seacove. And say! his folks and my folks are in the most wonderful mix-up—wait till I get a chance to tell you all about it!”
The party dodged from rock to rock and from one clump of brush to another. Soon Whistler was rather surprised that they did not spy George Belding. He was not lying on the big rock where Whistler had left him.
“W’ere’s your chum, lad?” asked Willum Johnson.
“I guess the spy must have moved. George would follow him,” Whistler said with confidence.
“But how shall we know which way they have gone? We’re no Red Indians on the trail,” Frenchy observed.
“Oi, oi!” added Ikey Rosenmeyer. “It’s near sunset, too.”
“Don’t be afeared, lad,” advised the big sailor, wagging his head. “Nothing will bite yuh around ’ere.”
Whistler then explained that Belding had agreed to drop bits of paper by which they might follow his trail, and this encouraged them all. Near the rock and the hollow in which Whistler himself had seen the spy change his clothes they found no sign of either Belding or the Hun.
The latter must have carried his bundle of clothing with him when he moved from this spot. It was some minutes before Ikey’s sharp eyes descried the first handful of torn paper which George Belding had dropped.
“Here’s the trail!” he shouted.