Hugh had already made up his mind on one score. This was to the effect that those whom they were pursuing must be heading for some place which they had knowledge of, and where they believed they would be fairly safe from discovery.
As the boys proceeded steadily along, the pacemaker became aware of another fact that began to give him increasing satisfaction. He and his two chums had been heading for the distant spot where some of their fellow scouts were in camp on an island in the river. These other boys had come a long way by means of a motorboat loaned to them by an enthusiastic gentleman of the home town, who, being abroad for the summer, desired to show his appreciation for the manly conduct of the scouts.
Hugh had a map of the country with him. He had never been over some sections of it, but, having made a study of topography, he believed that they were by degrees drawing nearer to the river, and would, if they kept on, strike it not far away from Raccoon Island, where Don Miller, leader of the Fox Patrol, had the boys in charge in the absence of others in authority.
When they made a brief halt in order to slake their thirst at a gurgling spring that gushed up alongside the road, Hugh put his comrades in possession of this astonishing bit of information. Naturally they were greatly pleased, especially Billy, whose merry face glowed with a sudden inspiring thought.
“Whee! talk to me about the luck of the Wolf Patrol!” he exclaimed. “Isn’t this just like the old story? Now, chances are those hobo footpads’ll go into hiding in the woods not three miles away from the island camp. What’s the answer? Why, we’ll send a signal to the boys that they’re wanted, and pretty soon one by one they’ll line up till we’ll be a baker’s dozen all told. I’m sorry for the poor wretches that took your runabout when that comes about, Gusty. You’ll get your first lesson on what it means to be a scout, when you see how we work this deal. Since Ralph Kenyon joined the troop, he’s shown up a heap of new things connected with woodcraft and the like. Even Hugh here has admitted that the boy who used to spend his winters trapping wild animals for their pelts so he could lay by a store of money to take him to the School of Mines some day, knew more’n he ever did. And there’s Arthur Cameron, Bud Morgan, Jack Durham, Spike Welling and a lot of other good fellows in camp up here, too. Hugh, I only hope she turns out like you say. Are we off again now?”
“Yes, and taking things fairly easy, too,” replied the leader as he straddled his machine, and waited for Gusty to get in position before starting. “If they expect to hide somewhere around this region, we’ll bump in on them soon enough. So, steady, everybody, from now on.”
While at the spring, he had taken out his road map and allowed all of them to see their location. The river was not many miles away, and this road crossed it by means of a bridge. Raccoon Island lay some distance above, where the stream widened and formed quite a shallow lake-like lagoon with wild borders, an ideal spot for a boys’ camp.
Billy managed to meet with some trifling trouble in making his getaway. This caused him to bring up the rear, a position he usually occupied, by the way, in most of their trips, for Billy was inclined to be sluggish in his movements, though his mind was active enough.
Motorcycles are splendid mounts to carry one swiftly along over fairly decent thoroughfares, but being more or less noisy, in spite of all efforts to stifle the explosions by means of the muffler, they can hardly be deemed just the thing to use when silence is necessary.
Hugh knew that if the men they were following had a camp near the road they would be apt to discover the approach of the boys long before he and his chums could lay any plans looking to their capture.