He knew very well that the boys he had seen there on the previous day had not come back and repaired the mischief they had done; they would be the last ones to think of such a thing. It followed, then, that Leon must have repaired the snares himself, that very morning; and, beyond a doubt, it was he who shot the hound.
Oscar's indignation gave way to a feeling of sadness.
"We'll not look any further, Bugle," said he.
And the hound, which had stretched itself out at his feet, and seemed to have forgotten all about the trifling injuries he had received, rapped the leaves with his tail when his master spoke.
"I don't want to see that boy, for I might say or do something spiteful. I can't understand it at all, for I am sure I never did anything to Leon that should cause him to take such a revenge on me. It can't be that he has anything against you, Bugle, for you never troubled him or anybody else, did you? I can't understand, either, how Leon happens to be in the woods to-day, for I know his father never lets him stay away from school to go hunting. Let's go down to the brook and take a bath, Bugle."
Leon and his cousin had not eluded pursuit so effectually as they thought they had, for Oscar could have overtaken and confronted them in less than thirty minutes after the shooting was done, had he felt so inclined.
He heard the reports of the shot-gun and rifle which brought down the squirrels that supplied the runaways with a portion of their dinner, and that was the way he found out that Leon was not alone.
Oscar knew that the other boy could be none other than Frank Fuller, but he never thought of him in connection with the shooting, for he did not believe that Frank had courage enough to perform an act of that kind. He knew, further, that he had only to follow up the stream, on the banks of which he spent half an hour in washing the blood from the hound's head, to find the two boys, for he saw the smoke of their camp-fire rising above the tops of the trees.