“Do you think this could be the same man who talked with Toby yesterday, Jack?” Steve inquired.
“We can guess that it must have been,” came the answer. “He wasn’t wholly satisfied with things, and dropped over in the night to learn if this camp was actually run by boys. You see how wise the lady was, after all, for if this party had run upon three men in camp up here, the chances are he’d be more apt to suspect their motives.”
Steve shook his head as though ready to give it up. He never in all his life had been so thoroughly mystified as just then. Toby, too, had an anxious expression on his face, as though he would give considerable if only Jack felt disposed to explain the whole matter. But Jack held his peace; apparently nothing could induce him to betray the confidence of the lady who had trusted him. When the right time arrived, he would divulge the secret; but until then both his chums must content themselves with taking it out in speculations.
Finally, Jack began to collect his photographic 56 paraphernalia as though about to get ready to start forth on his tramp. Steve had meanwhile looked after a “light lunch,” which he facetiously called a “snack”; though it filled two of his coat pockets, and Jack had some difficulty in stowing away his portion.
Toby eyed these amazing preparations with something akin to awe.
“Say, do you really expect to come back tonight, or are you figuring on staying out a whole week?” he asked plaintively; at which Jack, taking compassion on him, hastened to assure Toby there was no cause for worry.
“You know Steve’s weakness,” he went on to say aside, “and of course he is always in deadly fear of starving to death. That’s why he loads himself down so with grub on the least provocation. But never expect to see a crumb come back, for that would be against Steve’s principles, you know. He thinks it a shame to waste food; and so he’d stuff himself until he could hardly breathe rather than throw anything away. We may be a little late in the afternoon, but we’ll bob up serenely long before dark comes.”
So they set out, Toby waving them goodbye with his dish towel, for he had started in to do the breakfast things.
For a whole they walked along, observing everything that seemed worth their attention. Then Steve took note of a certain fact which he deemed significant. This was that Jack was heading in 57 an almost straight line, as though he had arranged a plan of campaign for that day; and also that if they kept along that course, sooner or later they were bound to fetch up in the neighborhood of the place where that strange booming sound had originated.
This fact agitated Steve, and made him think many things. He even found himself speculating upon the chances of their running across the stranger who was taking such a deep interest in their presence in the Pontico Hills country.