"You passed by without noticin' that, Rube," he said, when the boy went back to him. What he was staring at was the stub of a cigarette. "It wasn't lyin' there when I went along here this mornin', I guess. You c'n see by the ash that it hasn't been here long. Less'n an hour, I'd say. Who dropped it, I wonder? There ain't anybody in this yer camp smokes cigarettes."
He searched for footprints, but could discover none; a newly-broken twig was all the sign that he could see. He glanced around among the trees, but there was no visible movement, and a whip-poor-will was singing undisturbed from a high bough of a balsam tree close at hand.
"No occasion ter worry about a trifle like that," he remarked, as he went on in the direction of the lake. "All the same, I'm some curious."
He did not look back while carrying the long teepee poles through the narrow ways between the closely-growing trees. Had he done so, even the sureness and quickness of his eyesight might still have missed the cleverly hidden form of Broken Feather, who lay at full length in the midst of an elder bush, stealthily watching him.
CHAPTER X
THE GUARDIAN OF THE HONEYCOMB
"And we're really goin' ter make a start right now?" questioned Rube, as he watched Kiddie packing their fishing gear on top of the rest of their equipment in the canoe. "We shall not get very far if you're notionin' ter make camp 'fore dark."
"All the better," said Kiddie. "If we find we've forgotten anything, there'll be the less distance for us to come back for it, see?"
"Thar's nothin' as you're liable ter have forgot," observed Rube, confident in Kiddie's forethought. "Seems ter me you must have had a schedule of the things already fixed up in your head. Anyhow, I don't reckon as we shall have any occasion t' come back—unless it's for the big dog. Why ain't we takin' Sheila along of us, Kiddie? Wouldn't she have been useful?"