The two boys strolled off slowly and carelessly together, but did not stop until they had reached the grassy knoll by the river.
"Hurry up, tell me what it is, you have got me half wild with curiosity," cried Walter, flinging himself at full length upon the turf.
Charley smiled as he pointed at a thin wisp of smoke rising from the convicts' camp. "It is about our neighbors," he said.
"Have you learned anything new?" Walter demanded eagerly.
"No, but I've been putting two and two together concerning them again and again until I'm uncertain whether I've got the proper answer or have got everything distorted by long brooding over them. I want to know what the conclusion would be to a mind that is fresh."
"Good," said Walter, gleefully, "sounds just like a lawyer, go ahead, I'll be the judge."
"First," said Charley, gravely, "we can admit as an undisputed fact, that those fellows over there were either close behind or ahead of us at least part of the way here."
Walter nodded assent, too interested to interrupt.
"From the closeness with which they tally to that newspaper account, even down to the renegade Indian, we are, I think, justified in assuming that they are the escaped convicts."
"Their faces would convict them without any evidence," Walter declared.