“I didn’t know,” said Roy. “Last Saturday, while gunning with Fred, I met a man who said he was in search of a job, and he asked me about the chances in town. I haven’t seen anything of him since.”
“I generally take special notice of everybody that comes inter Oakdale,” asserted Constable Hubbard. “I cal’late it’s good policy to do so. Ain’t nobody new showed up lately, so I guess your man didn’t stop around here.”
“I don’t believe he did,” said Roy.
Presently they reached the old camp, from which, through the trees, they could get a glimpse of the pond. It did not take them long to jump out and unload their belongings, which were carried into the camp, the door being fastened merely by a wooden peg thrust through a staple. Hubbard backed his wagon round, bade them good luck and drove off into the shadows which were gathering in the woods.
“Well, here we are, Roy,” said Fred.
“Yes, and it’s up to us to hustle. Let’s look for that raft while it’s light enough to find it. We can get together firewood later. Come on.”
Leaving their property in the camp, they hurried to the pond, and Hooker led the way along the marshy shore. The water-grass and rushes stood thick and rank at this end of the lake, and soon Hooker pointed out a mass of dead brush in the midst of the reeds some distance from the marshy shore.
“There’s the old blind,” he said. “You can see it is located so it commands the cove beyond, and that’s where the ducks coming in to feed usually ’light.”
“How does a fellow get out to the blind?”
“Wade. The water won’t come up to your knees. There’s a sort of little knoll or island out there, and the brush has been built up and woven into the branches of an old fallen tree that may have grown on that knoll before the water was so high. It’s a fine chance all right. But come on, we must dig that raft out.”