Sam had said they could find him in the woods, but the woods had never seemed so extensive and it was like hunting for a needle in a haystack. They arrived at Beaver Pond and the Trapper's Cave without encountering any sign of the man and his dog.
Chiefly as a matter of habit they built a small fire in front of the Cave and sat down beside it on their log seat to consider the problem of finding an elusive hunter in the wide woods. They did not even open the treasure chest.
"He said anybody could tell us where to find him," said Jack, "but there's no one to ask. People don't live in the woods, do they?"
Ernest sat pondering. "Well," said he at length, "there's that old woman that gave us the doughnuts one day. Do you remember? She had a lot of white hens that went right into her house, and a little dog named Snider that was so old he could hardly breathe."
"Oh, yes," responded Jack, brightening up. "Where does she live?"
"I don't know exactly," said Ernest, mournfully, "but I think it was over that way. We might find her if we hunted."
The boys arose, put out their fire carefully, as all good woodsmen should, and started off through the woods again. They must have tramped for nearly an hour, but the very uncertainty of the outcome of their quest gave it a touch of adventure and kept them going. At last, after following various false clues, they came out unexpectedly and abruptly into the clearing behind the old woman's house. The cackling of fowls and the wheezy barking of little old Snider greeted them. As they approached, the old lady herself appeared in the doorway of her kitchen, clad in a faded blue dress and leaning on her stick. As soon as she saw that it was boys her face broke into a smile.
"Come right in," she said, "and I'll get you some cookies."
The boys entered and sat in the kitchen chairs to eat their cookies. They were anxious to be on their way in search of Sam Bumpus, but politeness demanded that they linger a few minutes. Ernest inquired after the health of old Snider. The widow shook her head sadly.
"He's failin'," she replied. "I can see he's failin'. His teeth is all gone so he can't eat much and he has the azmy pretty bad. It's what us old folks has to expect, I s'pose, but I don't know what I'll do when Snider goes. He's all I've got now."