"How's the kid?" Tom asked, as the sandy haired boy came out of the cabin and passed him without speaking.

"Fine. You ought to see him eat. He's a whole famine in himself. You mustn't mind him," he added; "he has notions."

"Oh," said Tom, "I'm used to being snubbed. It just amuses me in his case."

"How's tracking?"

"Punk. There's so much dust you can't make a track. What we need is rain, so we can get some good plain prints. That's the only way to teach a tenderfoot. Jeb says dust ought to be good enough, but he's a fiend."

"He could track an aeroplane," said Garry. "Everything's pretty dry, I guess."

"You'd say so," said Tom, "if you were down through those east woods. You could light a twig with a sun glass. They're having forest fires up back of Tannerstown."

"I saw the smoke," said Garry.

"There's a couple of hoboes down the cut a ways; we tracked them today, cooking over a loose fire. I tried to get them to cut it out; told 'em they'd have the whole woods started. They only laughed. I'm going to report it to J. R."

"They on the camp land?"