“It’s a footprint,” he said.
Just then we heard a sound right near us, just like branches crackling, and in a couple of seconds one of those bloodhounds from the Uncle Tom’s Cabin show came dashing up through the bushes. He pushed Tom Slade right out of the way and began sniffing that footprint. He was so excited that he didn’t notice us.
XI—A MYSTERIOUS FOOTPRINT
First it seemed kind of as if that bloodhound was just scooping; that means using something that another scout has found. If I should find a robin’s nest and then another scout should stalk there, that would be scooping. Gee whiz, that’s a mean thing to do. Up at Temple Camp a scout will get himself disliked for doing that. But it’s all right to stalk the cooking-shack. Pee-wee thinks he’s the only one who has a right to hang out there—I should worry.
Anyway that has nothing to do with the bloodhound. Tom got out of his way, and we all stood about while the dog sniffed around the footprint, awful excited like. There wasn’t another footprint anywhere in sight.
Brent said in that funny way of his, “Well, I guess we’re up against the real thing at last. I guess old Snoozer here is on the track of Eliza. Listen and maybe we’ll hear her baby crying. She always carries a baby with her when she puts one over on the bloodhounds, doesn’t she?”
“You’re crazy!” Pee-wee shouted; “she always crosses the ice. Didn’t you see that big roll of canvas they’ve got? That’s got ice painted on it. They spread that on the stage and she runs across it with har—what-d’ye-call-it—her infant child.”
“Her which?” Harry said.
“I think she takes a thermos bottle, too, and an aluminum cooking set,” Brent said.
Harry said, “Well, anyway, she has given old Snoozer the slip this time.”