Gus watched Hugh as a cat might a mouse upon which it meant to presently pounce. The scout master was moving slowly up the little gully in which the tramps had hidden themselves, meaning to go back to the cabin should the intruders leave the vicinity, sooner or later.
While the place had offered a certain amount of shelter before the coming of the storm, it was a mere apology of a camp, once that driving wind started in to whipping the last remaining dead leaves from the hard wood trees, and levelling many of the pines. Sam must have stood it as long as he could, and then yielded to the impulse to let the gale urge him along, in hopes of finding a better shelter.
Hugh was alert and watchful, because he knew that it was an easy thing to go wrong in a case like this. A false deduction in the beginning would send them on a wild-goose chase, and with it would go their last feeble hope of finding the lost tramp.
Hugh even got down on his hands and knees and started to crawl laboriously up the slight ascent of rocks. At first Gus was bothered to account for this action on the part of his chum, and even feared that Hugh may have been more fatigued than he cared to admit. On second thought Gus arrived at the true explanation of the mystery.
Hugh was acting on the old principle of putting himself in the other fellow’s place. He meant to try and do just what he imagined the weak and distressed Sam must have attempted when making this desperate move.
The gully was really nothing more nor less than a slight depression of the rocks. Its edges were not high enough in any place to effectually shut out the sweep of the wind. On this account it was likely to prove a poor sort of shelter, though, for one thing, the danger of falling trees was not so great here as in many other places, and Sam may have understood this.
Gus was using his eyes on his own account as they crept along up the rise in this slow and laborious fashion. In spite of their weak condition, owing to the wind and the gathering tears, he could manage to make out some object lying huddled just ahead of them, and toward which Hugh was moving steadily at the time.
As yet they could not tell exactly whether this might prove to be the object of their search, or simply an outcropping mass of rock. Another half minute would tell the tale, and therefore Gus shut his jaws firmly together, determined to prove himself a credit to his organization.
All doubt was quickly removed when Hugh, turning his head, called back:
“Here he is; we’ve found him!”