Then, as daylight had fully come, Max seemed to conceive a sudden notion.
"Get one of the others to help you with this, Owen," he remarked. "I'll be back in half an hour, or less."
Although wondering what he had in mind, Owen, being a boy of few words as a rule, did not attempt to question his cousin. He saw him go down to where the canoes lay up on the beach, and launching one of the smaller canvas ones, paddle off. And as he saw Max move along close to the shore of the island, now beginning to be bathed in the first rays of the rising sun, Owen smiled, as though he had guessed the other's mission.
Later on, just as the call to breakfast was given, Max returned, and drew the little canoe up on the beach where the others lay.
"What luck?" asked his cousin, as Max sat down and started to pour himself a tin cup of coffee, his platter having been already filled with fried ham and eggs that sent up a most tempting odor.
The others lifted their heads to listen, and even stopped eating, hungry as they were, to learn what it was Max had been investigating.
"Nothing doing," replied the returned paddler, with a smile. "I went completely around the island, and examined the shore the best way I could, for signs of some boat, or to see where one had landed last night, but I didn't get a glimpse of anything. If they did come off the mainland, they knew how to get ashore without leaving any signs behind, that's all."
"But, Max, I didn't know that Ted Shafter was such a good woodsman as all that!" objected Owen.
"No more he isn't," replied the other, as he lowered his cup, after taking one good drink of the hot contents, that tasted better than anything he ever got at home, where they had thick cream, and delicate china to drink from. "And that's one reason why I'm puzzled to believe it could have been them."
Bandy-legs looked worried again.