This gave the others something to talk about until the shades of evening began to gather around them. Who these two men could be, and just why they seemed to take such an interest in Catamount Island, were questions that the boys debated from all sides. Even Bandy-legs seemed to be stirred up, and made all sorts of ridiculous suggestions.
Steve came in finally. It only required one look at his disappointed face to tell that he had not met with any success in his latest mission. Even the delightful odor of his freshly caught bass, cooking in the frying pan over the fire, failed to make Steve look happier. He did hate to be beaten in anything he undertook.
"Nothing doing, Steve?" questioned Bandy-legs; for there is a saying to the effect that "babes and fools rush in where brave men hesitate to tread"; which, however, must not be taken to mean that Bandy-legs belonged to either class, although he failed to approach a subject with tact.
"Naw!" snapped Steve, as he hung the case containing the glasses up in its accustomed place inside the tent.
A few minutes later, finding that no one bothered him for information, Steve, who was really brimming over with a desire to argue the matter with his comrades, opened the subject himself.
"Say, now, Max, you don't suppose that it could have been any of them fellows, do you?" he asked.
Max, who was adjusting the coffee pot nicely on the slender iron bars that formed what he was accustomed to call his "cooking stove," these four resting on solid foundation of stones on either side of the hot little fire, turned his head when Steve addressed him particularly.
"Which way did they seem to go when they left?" he asked, slowly, as though the answer might have a good deal to do with his opinion.
"Up the river," replied Steve, promptly.
"Well, then, I don't believe it could have been any of the boys," was what Max went on to state; "and I'll tell you several reasons for saying that. In the first place there would have been three if it was the Ted Shafter crowd; and perhaps more if Herb had come up here to see whether we were really camping on Catamount Island."