"What!"
"It's just as I'm tellin' you," Pete repeated. "That skiff we lost the other night didn't get loose. It was taken by somebody who knew what he was doing and brought down here. Here's where the party landed," he added, as he pointed to the shore. "But the boat wasn't 'wrecked,' unless you call smashing it wrecking it."
"What do you mean? How do you know?" demanded Fred in keen excitement.
"I know because I can see with both eyes," replied Pete sharply. "I don't have to have it all written out for me when I see what's happened to that boat."
"Why should anybody want to wreck it?" inquired Fred.
"It might be safer for some people if they started down the stream from here not to have any boats around that could follow."
"Do you think those two men who were in our camp took the boat?" Fred inquired abruptly.
"That's exactly what I think. And I think too," the guide added as he stopped to examine other parts of the boat, "that this skiff was wrecked as well as smashed. There's a hole stove in the bottom and then there are places that have been cut by an axe so I guess both parts of the story are true."
"Do you suppose they went up Thorn's Gulch from here?" asked Fred in a low voice.
"That's just what I think they did," replied Pete.