Carrying the lantern, the woods boy was carefully examining the ground. He scratched his head as he looked up.
“Nothing doing yet, as I can see,” he remarked. “Just as you said, Teddy, the ground is as hard as the mischief right here. I might come on some sign where p’raps he broke off a twig when he hurried so, to get away. That’s what I’m really looking for right now; something that’ll tell there was a sneaker here.”
“Hope you find it, then, Amos,” said Teddy, who was more or less chagrined because he had not been able, thus far, to advance the necessary proof, in order to show he had not been mistaken in his belief; and that it really was a man, probably Hackett, whose retreating footsteps he claimed to have heard, after firing at random.
Amos did not give up so easily. He seemed to just feel that there should be some sort of evidence at hand, if one did not tire hunting for the same. And so, holding his lantern low, he kept looking to the right and to the left.
All at once the others heard him give an exclamation; and Teddy felt that there was something akin to delight in the cry.
“Found the trail, have you, Amos?” he demanded joyously.
“No trail, but something better,” came the answer. “Come here, both of you. What do you make that out to be?”
He pointed to some object on the ground. It looked like a bunch of paper. Teddy bent down and secured possession of the thing, which he instantly raised to his nose, as though anxious to make doubly sure.
“Some of our coffee, by the great horn spoon!” he exclaimed, “and since we know who carried this away, stuck in his pocket, why, it ain’t a hard thing to guess now, is it, that Big Gabe came back, meaning to take away either one of our canoes, or, failing that, my dandy repeater here. Well, I only hope he carried off some of the charge that was in the barrel of this same gun.”
Solemnly the package was passed around, each of the others smelling of it, and then nodding an assent to the explanation advanced by Teddy Overton. The pretended hunter for wild ginseng had come back, filled with a desire to lay hands on more of that delicious coffee, or some of the other possessions of the camp mates.