“Now you’re tumbling to facts, Josh. Remember, we had a big downpour just three days ago, don’t you?” Jack went on.
“Sure I do. And you’re on to that, too. But I grab your meaning now, all right. There are marks here that must have been made since that rain.”
“Well, what do you say about it now?” continued the boy who could read signs.
“Instead of duck shooters they’re fishermen,” observed Josh, calmly. “Yes, and you remember how those three boats came along, and the men in each stared so hard at us? Jack, I see it all now. We just happened in a favorite place of theirs, and they didn’t like it for a cent. Why, they even tried to scare us off with that silly ghost business that gave poor old Pudding such a fright.”
Jack only smiled.
“Well,” he said, “suppose we follow this trail for a bit. I have an idea it will lead us to the very place where I thought I saw a moving light, like a swinging lantern, last night.”
Josh was eager to keep step with him; but there was no trouble experienced in picking up the trail, so plainly marked were the tracks.
“There it is, Jack!” exclaimed Josh, suddenly; for he had been looking ahead all the time his companion kept his eyes fixed on the ground.
“It is a shanty of some sort, isn’t it?” remarked Jack, without much emotion; for he had been absolutely positive as to what they would discover, so that the announcement did not excite him.
“Why, yes, a tumbledown sort of a shack,” observed Josh, with a trace of disappointment about his manner. “I’d pity the fellows who spent a rainy day in such a rookery. Why, the roof is falling in at one end; and the door hangs on one rusty hinge.”