"Yes, and I'll stick to it; but there's something in these mountains that I don't want to hear screaming around our cabin this winter, now I tell you. What kind of a beast do you think it was, anyway? You heard a panther screech while you were hunting in Michigan last winter. Did he make a noise like that?"
"No," answered Bob; "it wasn't a beast, either."
"What makes you say that?"
"I have two very good reasons. In the first place, if there are any animals in these mountains that are more to be feared than the wolves, they have found hiding-places so secure that the hunters have not been able to discover them for ten years and better. In the next place, if that thing in the gulf is a beast of prey, he would not have given us notice of his presence. He would have waited till we came close to the bushes so that he could jump out and grab one of us."
"That's so," said Tom. "Well, go on; what was it?"
"You placed our robbers' cave down there, didn't you?"
"Oh, get out!" exclaimed Tom; "I'm in no humor for nonsense. I was badly frightened, and I haven't got over it yet."
"Neither have I. I am in dead earnest. There's somebody down there in the gulf, and he took that way to let us know that he didn't want us to come any nearer to him."
"It was Silas Morgan, for a million dollars!" exclaimed Tom, who needed no more words to convince him that his friend's reasoning was correct. "It's perfectly clear to me now. He didn't waste any time in going after that money, did he?"
"Quite the contrary. He has been so very quick about it, that I'm inclined to believe it wasn't Silas at all; but if it was he, why is he camping there?"