Bogle snatched his rifle.
“Stay here,” he whispered to his companions. “Be ready if I need you.”
He went swiftly to the door and opened it. He closed it partly behind him as he stepped outside. Half-a-dozen feet from the cabin stood a vigorous-looking man of sixty, clad in the garb of a typical Maine hunter and trapper. His kindly face was grizzled and bearded. He carried a rifle over his shoulder. Bogle went swiftly up to him and held out his hand.
“I’ll swear if it ain’t Jack Mowry,” he exclaimed.
The stranger glanced keenly into the other’s face. Then he uttered a long, hearty laugh that came from deep down in his chest.
“By Jingo, it’s Joe Bogle! Wa-al, wa-al, this beats anything ever I heard on. Why, man, I ain’t seen you fur near three years—not since that winter on Moosehead.”
“Oh! this is a sort of a shooting den that Raikes and I put up,” Bogle hastily explained. “Raikes is with me, and we are just ready to start away. Where are you bound, Mowry?”
“That’s jest what I’d like ter know,” returned the trapper, as he shot a puzzled glance toward the cabin. “I hev a camp ’bout a mile north of the swamp, an’ this mornin’ I tracked a deer into this dog-goned tangle o’ bushes. I lost my bearin’s an’ hev been wanderin’ ’round ever since.”
“That’s hard luck,” replied Bogle. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do now, Mowry. I can’t ask you in to spend the night, because we are just leaving, and our provisions have run out. But I’ll get a light and guide you back to your camp. I know every foot of the swamp. By the way, Raikes will be glad to meet you. You remember Silas, don’t you? He was with you on Moosehead.”
Without waiting for a reply, Bogle called aloud: