During the days that followed the behavior of Piper was even more inexplicable and annoying; for each day, refusing to let anyone accompany him, he set forth alone in his boat, sometimes leaving the camp before noon, and usually remaining away until near nightfall. Nor would he offer any explanation, compelling his perplexed and offended friends to remain as content as possible with his promise that he would “reveal all in due time.”
“I’d give tut-ten dollars to know what he’s up to,” said Springer.
“So’d I—if I had ten dollars,” declared Crane.
Once Phil and Sile attempted to follow Piper with the canoe, but when he detected them he promptly turned about and rowed straight back to Pleasant Point.
“Think yeou’re smart, don’t ye?” sneered Crane, when he and Phil had also returned. “Yeou make me sick at the stomach.”
“It’s plain,” retorted Piper grimly, “that you need another lesson to cure you of your overweening curiosity.”
After that they ceased their efforts, Sile and Phil treating Piper with the utmost disdain, although Grant appeared to be more or less amused; and, in his quiet way, Stone accepted it all as an entertaining joke.
One day the boys saw Piper come swiftly forth from the tent and make for his boat, bearing the shotgun. Immediately Sile shouted:
“Hey, there! Yeou leave that gun! Yeou’ve got a crust, takin’ it without askin’ leave. Drop it!”
But Sleuth hurried on, placed the gun in the boat and pushed off, paying not the slightest heed to Crane’s commands. They watched him rowing steadily away across the lake, heading somewhat to the south of Spirit Island, and finally he passed from view beyond a wooded point of the farther shore.