“No,” Chet said earnestly. “I see our marks. But a person with a much bigger foot has been here. See that? and that? Some stranger. I—I’m not sure that we have been robbed by wolves, after all, Dig.”
“By the last hoptoad that was chased out of Ireland” gasped the other boy. “What do you mean? Who could have robbed us? I don’t understand, Chet.”
“Neither do I,” returned young Havens. “Don’t come this way and foul the marks any more. Let’s see where this fellow came from, and where he went to.”
CHAPTER XVII—A MYSTERY
Chet Havens had been an apt pupil of old Rafe Peters, the hunter who was now mine foreman at the Silent Sue; nor had he missed much that had been told him by other plainsmen. Trailing and hunting was a hobby with the boy, and each vacation for several years past he had spent the most of his time on hunting trips.
With Digby Fordham he had taken many short trips around Silver Run; but they had seldom encountered big game or gone many miles from their home. This trip to Grub Stake was by far the longest the chums had ever taken alone.
It was Chet’s trained eye that discovered the fact that a marauder other than the wolves had been at their camp. Had it been left to Dig, who was not observant, the presence of any other enemy than that which had annoyed them in the evening probably would never have been discovered.
“Could it have been those Indians, Chet?” asked Dig, as his chum bent to examine the ground closely.
“What Indians?”
“John Peep’s dog soldiers.”