“They seem to have gone,” he announced coming back a moment later. “I guess the guns were too many for them.”
“For the time being, perhaps, but something tells me that we haven’t seen the last of them yet.”
“I’m afraid you’re right there and we’ll keep a mighty sharp watch.” Bob agreed as he led the way through the woods.
They made no effort to make time. They were far more desirous of making a thorough search as they went along and not to miss anything which might furnish a clue. Shortly after twelve o’clock they stopped to eat their dinner by the side of a little stream.
They had finished and were about to start again when suddenly the stillness of the forest was broken by the call of the loon.
“Listen,” Bob said as he grabbed Jack’s arm. “You’ll hear an owl hoot in a minute.”
His prediction was made good almost immediately.
“That may be a real owl,” Jack declared as the last hoot boomed through the forest, “but if a loon should hear that punk imitation he’d bury his head beneath the waves for shame.”
“Just what I thought the other night and, knowing that the loon call is a fake we can be pretty certain that the owl belongs to the same species and anyhow, it’s the same ‘loon’ that I heard the other time.”
“I guess that makes it pretty certain that it is a signal.”