“Supper time—and past,” he remarked. “Gee, now that I’m reminded of eating, I could get away with about three square meals at once.”
By common consent the club started in the direction in which the camp lay. They skirted the burned patch, but at the farther border Sam halted. The others pulled up too.
“What’s on your mind, Sam?” asked Step.
Sam wrinkled his brow. “There are a few things I don’t quite figure out. I suppose the fire started on this side; for this is the windward side, if you can say there was breeze enough to make a windward and a leeward. Now, what was there here to set it going?”
“I don’t see anything,” said Step, after a pause devoted to observation.
“Nor I,” chimed in two or three others.
“Probably somebody, going through, was smoking, and got careless with a match or cigarette stub,” suggested Tom.
“Maybe,” said Sam, shortly.
“Well, what likelier explanation have you?”
Sam contented himself with shaking his head and saying, “It’s queer, all the same.”