No sooner had Hugh looked than he turned to the rest.
“Keep quiet, and do nothing to attract attention,” he said. “Fortunately the fire has burned itself nearly out, so there’s little or no smoke rising, and the breeze is coming from them to us. We’d better let them go past without knowing we’re in camp here.”
His words of warning thrilled every scout, and there was immediately a general movement under way to find some chance to discover what it was that had excited the two who had been standing on the log.
As they looked over the tops of the screening bushes, they discovered moving figures up the road; and at the same time could be heard the scuffling sound of many feet not keeping time as soldiers would have done.
The boys stared as they saw several squads of men passing swiftly along. It appeared as though some of these parties seemed suspicious, perhaps half anticipating an attack from the neighboring woods. They were on the whole a tough-looking crowd, and seemed to be muscular workers, some natives, others of foreign birth.
Half a dozen heavily-armed men strode along with them. At sight of the repeating rifles they carried, Billy whispered to Hugh, close to whom he now stood:
“Who are they, Hugh? Can they be game wardens arresting poachers up here?”
“I reckon that they are strike-breakers, guarded by armed deputies,” Hugh replied.
CHAPTER VI.
EVERYBODY BUSY.
“That’s going to mean a pack of trouble, isn’t it, Hugh?” said Billy the Wolf, as he counted the men who were passing, and found that they numbered fully a score, with six armed guards who looked very grim and determined.