"Look! Look!" cried Ruth, pointing at them. "They're the same ones!"

"The men we saw at the lock?" asked Neale.

"Yes, and the men who robbed us--I am almost positive of that!" cried the oldest Corner House girl.

"The rascals!" exclaimed the lawyer. "They're going to escape us again!

Fate seems to be with them! Every time we come upon them they manage to distance us!"

This was what was happening now. The tramps--such they seemed to be, though the possession of a motor boat took them out of the ordinary cla.s.s--with never a look behind, speeded away.

"How provoking!" cried Agnes. "To think they have our jewelry and we can't make them give it up."

"You are not sure they have it," said Mr. Howbridge, as the motor craft pa.s.sed out of sight beyond a tree-fringed point.

"I think I am," said Ruth. "If they are not guilty why do they always hurry away when they see us?"

"Well, Minerva, that is a question I can not answer," said her guardian, with a smile. "You are a better lawyer than I when it comes to that.

Certainly it does look suspicious."

"Oh, for a motor boat!" sighed Neale. "I'd like to chase those rascals!"

"Yes, it would be interesting to find out why they seem to fear us,"

agreed Mr. Howbridge. "But it's too late, now."

"I wonder why they came to this island," mused Ruth. "Do you think they were fishermen?"

"They didn't have any implements of the trade," said Mr. Howbridge. "But their presence proves that the island is not altogether uninhabited.

Let's go along, and we may find some one to help get the boat back into the water."

They resumed their journey, new beauties of nature being revealed at every step. The trees and gra.s.s were particularly green after the effective washing of the night before, and there were many wild flowers which the two little girls gathered, with many exclamations of delight.

Turning with the path, the trampers suddenly came to a small clearing amid the trees. It was a little gra.s.sy glade, through which flowed a stream of water, doubtless from some hidden spring higher up among the rocks. But what most interested Neale, Agnes, Ruth and the lawyer was a small cabin that stood in the middle of the beautiful green gra.s.s.

"There's a house!" cried Dot. "Look!"

"It's the start of one, anyhow," agreed Mr. Howbridge.

"And somebody lives in it," went on Ruth, as the door of the cabin opened and a heavily bearded man came out, followed by a dog. The dog ran, barking, toward the explorers, but a command from the man brought him back.

"I hope we aren't trespa.s.sing," said Mr. Howbridge. "We were blown on the island last night, and we're looking for help to get our houseboat back into the lake."

"Oh, no, you aren't trespa.s.sing," the man replied with a smile, showing two rows of white teeth that contrasted strangely with his black beard.

"I own part of the island, but not all of it. What sort of boat did you say?"

"Houseboat," and the lawyer explained the trouble. "Are there men here we can get to help us pole her off the sh.o.r.e?" he asked.

"Well, I guess I and my two boys could give you a hand," was the slow answer. "They've gone over to the mainland with some fish to sell, but they'll be back around noon."

"We'll be glad of their help," went on the lawyer. "Do you live here all the while?"

"Mostly. I and my boys fish and guide. Lots of men come here in the summer that don't know where to fish, and we take 'em out."

"Were those your two sons we saw in a motor boat back there in the cove?" asked Neale, indicating the place where the tramps had been observed. Rather anxiously the bearded man's answer was awaited.

"What sort of boat was it?" he countered.

Neale described it sufficiently well.

"No, those weren't my boys," returned the man, while the dog made friends with the visitors, much to the delight of Dot and Tess. "We haven't any such boat as that. I don't know who those fellows could be, though of course many people come to this island."

"I wish we could find out who those men are," said Mr. Howbridge. "I have peculiar reasons for wanting to know," he went on.

"I think they call themselves Klondikers, because they have been, or claim to have been, to the Alaskan Klondike," said Neale. "Do you happen to know any Klondikers around here?"

Somewhat to the surprise of the boy the answer came promptly:

"Yes, I do. A man named O'Neil."

"What!" exclaimed Neale, starting forward. "Do you know my father? Where is he? Tell me about him!"

"Well, I don't know that he's your father," went on the black-bearded man. "Though, now I recollect, he did say he had a son and he hoped to see him soon. But this O'Neil lives on one of the islands here in the lake. Or at least he's been staying there the last week. He bought some fish of me, and he said then he'd been to the Klondike after gold."

"Did he say he got any?" asked Neale.

The man of the cabin shook his head.

"I wouldn't say so," he remarked. "Mr. O'Neil had to borrow money of one of my boys to hire a boat. I guess he's poorer than the general run. He couldn't have got any gold in the Klondike."

At this answer Neale's heart sank, and a worried suspicion crept into his mind. If his father were poor it might explain something that had been troubling the boy of late. Somehow, all the brightness seemed to go out of the day. Neale's happy prospects appeared very dim now.

"Poor father!" he murmured to himself.

Suddenly, from the lake behind them came some loud shouts, at which the dog began to bark. Then followed a shot, and the animal raced down the slope toward the water.

CHAPTER XXIV

CLOSING IN

"Perhaps these are the men!" exclaimed Ruth to the lawyer.

"What men?" he asked.

"Those tramps--the ones who robbed us in the rain storm that day. If they come here--"

"What's the matter?" asked the man of the cabin--Aleck Martin he had said his name was. "What seems to be the trouble with the young lady?"