“Look, Marse Blake! Wha’ dat froo de trees dere? Look uncommon lak a light.”
“It is a light. Although I don’t know what any habitation can be doing in this part of the world,” answered Rob.
“Maybe even ef it’s only er camp we kin git suffin’ ter eat dar,” suggested Jumbo hopefully, “ah’m jes’ nacherally full ob nuttin’ but emptiness.”
“You’d never make a Scout, Jumbo.”
“Don’ belibe I wants ter be no Skrout nohow,” retorted Jumbo, “dar’s too much peregrinaciusness about it ter suit me.”
Rob did not reply. But a moment later he cautioned Jumbo to progress as cautiously as possible. The boy could see now that the light proceeded from the open doorway of a hut. Within the rude structure he could make out a masculine figure in rough hunting garb bending over a stove at one end of the primitive place.
All of a sudden Rob’s foot encountered something. He tripped and fell, sprawling on his face. At the same instant the sharp report of a gun rang out close at hand.
The wire over which the boy had tripped, and which was stretched across the pathway, had discharged the alarm signal. As the echoes went roaring and flapping through the forest, the man who had been bending over the stove, straightened as if a steel spring had suddenly sprung erect.
He was a small, dwarfish-looking fellow, with a clay-colored skin, beady, black eyes, shifty as a wild beast’s. The animal-like impression of his face was heightened by a shaggy beard of black that fell in unkempt fashion almost to his waist. He wore blue jean trousers, moccasins and a thick blue flannel shirt.
With a swift, panther-like movement, he snatched up a rifle that stood in one corner of the hut. His next move was to extinguish the light with a sharp puff. Then, with every sense wire-strung, he stood listening.