“But you want to notice there isn’t a note of eagerness in his baying,” added Elmer, quickly. “If he’s found any sort of scent at all, it isn’t what he’s been searching for. You can even detect a sort of disappointed sound about his mournful notes.”
“That’s what!” echoed Wee Willie. “Either the lunatic has been too smart for the trackers, or else it wasn’t him after all, and the dog knows it.”
Elmer shut the door again, though only with an effort, owing to its really dilapidated condition. And Perk, as if in duty bound, proceeded again to adjust his rope guard. It had served them one good turn already, he figured; because had those two guards burst suddenly in upon them, their consternation must have been many times aggravated.
“A nice state of affairs, I must say!” Wee Willie was grumbling. “We came all the way up here to camp in solitude and peace, and now see what we’re up against! Gee whiz! can you beat it?”
“No, but mebbe we’d better beat it for home,” Perk faintly suggested, as if even the thought gave him fresh pain.
“Here, none of that, Perk,” sternly rebuked Elmer. “We’re not the kind to be frightened off by such a silly little thing as that. We’ll stick it out, no matter what comes along!”
“Hear! hear!” came from Wee Willie; while Amos too added his voice to the chorus, and even Perk hastened to say:
“Oh! I didn’t really mean it, I assure you, boys, and you can believe me. I’ll hang on as long as the next one, no matter if the whole asylum breaks loose.”
CHAPTER V
ALL BUSY AS BEAVERS
It was some time before the boys could settle down again to sleep. Perk often believed he could catch a distant yap from the ranging hound, and it never failed to give him a thrill. The beast had seemed both big, and inclined to be savage; and Perk could not help shuddering to think of his getting loose from his leash and coming on the cringing lunatic somewhere in the lonely timber.