Steve groaned aloud.

"I just knew he'd remember that blooming old fish spear again!" he declared. "I saw he'd forgotten it, but I didn't say a word; because he keeps turning the thing around so that a fellow don't dare call his life his own. See here, Bandy-legs, let me knock off a few feet from that long pole. Then mebbe you c'n handle the spear better."

"Oh, that's awful kind of you, Steve; I was just thinking of trying to do that myself, when you saved me the trouble," remarked Bandy-legs, sweetly, as he suffered Steve to take the long pole out of his hands, place it on two stones, and by jumping smartly on it at the weakest part, manage to sever some four feet of the spear shaft.

"Now you can handle it better; and for goodness' sake keep it away from my back," Steve went on to say; "there's no telling what you might do, if you got excited all of a sudden; and I wouldn't like to be taken for a big carp, or a sucker either."

So they turned their backs on the queer cabin, and once more plunged into the tangle of vines and vegetation, making their way slowly onward.

At times they could not even see the sun that they knew: was shining above the leafy canopy over their heads. But Max seemed to have no difficulty whatever in keeping along a straight course.

"Don't see how he does it," muttered Bandy-legs, as he fumbled with a little compa.s.s he carried all the time nowadays; for having been lost once upon a time in the woods, he was determined not to take chances that way again.

"Oh, there are plenty of ways for keeping a course you set, even when the sun is behind the clouds," Max told him. "It's a poor hand that depends alone on seeing sun or moon to know his way in the forest. I can tell from the bark on these trees which is north; then the green moss on the trunks tells me the same thing; and even the general way the trees lean points it out; for you'll notice that nine out of ten, if they bend at all, do so toward the southeast; that's because all of our heavy winter storms come from the northwest."

"All that's mighty interesting, Max," remarked Steve; "wish I knew as much as you do about traveling through the woods, and the things a fellow is apt to meet up with there. The more I hear you tell, the more I make up my mind I'm going to take lessons in woodcraft; but I never seem to fully catch on."

"Well, it comes easier with some persons than with others," remarked Max, who was too kind to say what he really thought; which was that in his opinion boys, or men either for that matter, who are hasty and impetuous by nature, never make clever hands in the woods, where patient labor at times is the only method of solving some of the puzzling things that confront one.

"Now we're getting near the upper end of the island," remarked Owen, a while later.

"How do you find that out!" asked Bandy-legs, looking around him helplessly, as if he really expected to see signposts to the right and left, informing the traveler of the lay of the land.

"Why," answered Owen, "you see, the trees are getting lower, and not so thick, as the soil doesn't seem so rich down near the water. I can see through the upper branches here, and we couldn't do that before.

Besides, I've been keeping tabs on the distance we came, measured by paces; and I reckon we just must be near the other end of the island by now. Max said it was about two hundred and fifty yards from top to bottom."

"Oh, is that it?" was all Bandy-legs remarked; but he beamed admiringly on Owen from that moment, as though he might be sharing the halo of glory that was hovering over the head of Max.

They did come out on the sh.o.r.e a couple of minutes later. Looking up the river it was easy to see where the stream became narrow again, after spreading out into the broad bay where Catamount Island was situated.

"And to think we've just got to go back that same way," sighed Bandy-legs, dismally.

"Perhaps not," remarked Max, who had a frown on his face, as of new concern. "I was just thinking that we'd better keep right along the beach here, boys, and get back to camp as soon as we can. I reckon we've been gone more than a full hour now; and that we may have done a foolish thing to come away, and leave things unprotected."

"Whew, that _was_ silly of us, sure enough!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Steve; "and yet it never struck me that way till you mentioned it, Max. Yes, let's lose no more time, but get a move on us. Looks like we might have easy walking all the way, and get there in next to a jiffy."

"If so be those Shatters and Toots and Beggs are around, haven't we left things nice for them, though?" commented Owen. "If we're lucky enough to get off scot free this time, you won't catch us doing just that sort of foolish thing again."

"They might steal our grub!" gasped Bandy-legs, to whom such a thing would be in the nature of a terrible calamity, since he did like good eating above almost anything else.

"What about our canoes?" said Max, sternly, very much provoked at himself for having made this slip, when the others all seemed to look to him to provide against any such mistake in judgment.

They hurried as much as the rough nature of the sh.o.r.e line allowed. Poor Bandy-legs was put to it to keep up with his more nimble companions; and came puffing along in the rear, sometimes tripping over the pole of his fish spear, but holding on to the same with dogged determination.

And so, in the course of a little time, they rounded the point that stood out just above where they had fixed their camp, and thus came in sight of the beach upon which they had landed when reaching Catamount Island the afternoon before.

CHAPTER VIII.

AN UNWELCOME DISCOVERY.

"Bully, they're still there, just like we left them!" shouted Steve; and from the manner in which he said this, it was evident that he had shared in some of the fears which beset his companions.

In fact, all of the boys experienced a singular relief when they discovered that the canoes still lay there on the beach.

"Seems to be all hunky dory," Bandy-legs was heard to remark, as he came puffing along in the rear, determined to keep up with the procession; "if only now them tricky fellers ain't gone and bored more auger holes in my little cedar d.i.n.ky! You never can tell. 'Pearances are often deceitful, remember, we used to write in our copybooks at school? Well, they are, sometimes. I know it, because I never 'spected to have the river come in on me; and it did, you just bet it did!"

But while Bandy-legs was amusing himself by this manner of talk, no one was apparently paying the least attention to him. They had hurried along, eager to get to the camp, and verify their first impression, to the effect that all was well.

So far as they could see, as they drew near, things were just as they had left them something like an hour and a half previously. The two tents stood there, with the little burgees flapping idly in the morning breeze. Possibly a wandering 'c.o.o.n or a curious fox may have dropped in to investigate conditions; but the food had all been placed far above the reach of such hungry creatures, so no one need feel the least bit of alarm.

It was Max who made the first discovery that set them to quivering again with a new apprehension.

"Look at the flap of the tent here!" he exclaimed. "I'm dead sure I fastened it tight behind me; and I was the last one in there. It's hanging loose, right now!"

"Wow, so's ours!" whooped Steve, furiously.

The boys plunged into the tents, anxious once more concerning the state of affairs; and immediately a chorus of indignant outcries told that they found things otherwise than satisfactory.

"Somebody's been rooting around in here!" called out Steve, from the depths of the second tent.

"And mauled all our duds, too! Look at the stuff scattered around, would you?" Bandy-legs was heard to howl.

"Looks like the thief wanted to find something or other, and must have been frightened off by hearing us coming," Owen declared, also a bit angrily.

As yet there had come no loud outcries from the other tent; but that was not because those who had rushed inside found things just to their satisfaction. Max was always a fellow of few words; and as for Toby, he never could express himself intelligently when tremendously excited. He just stood there, with his lower jaw moving up and down, yet no sound following the action.

There was good reason for this feeling of dismay on the part of the pair occupying the smaller tent, where most of the provisions were kept. For they had discovered, as soon as they entered, that everything was thrown about, helter-skelter. Indeed, it looked as though the unknown thief must have been gathering together pretty much all their supplies in the shape of foodstuff, with the evident intention of carrying the same off; when, alarmed by their coming, he had grabbed up a strip of breakfast bacon, the last loaf of bread, and possibly a can of baked beans, with which he had hastily decamped.

Max, after the first flush of his indignation had pa.s.sed away, was rather amused than otherwise by the affair. The loss had not been so very great after all, since no damage had been done to the precious canoes. And if it came to the worst, one of the campers could easily be dispatched to the home town to buy more provisions, since they had plenty of money still in the treasury, thanks to those wonderful little pearls, taken from the waters of this same Big Sunflower River.

As usual with him, Max began to cast around in order to find some clew to the ident.i.ty of the thief. Of course the other three had by this time hurried into the smaller tent to ascertain what the extent of the damages might be. And loud were the wailings of Bandy-legs when he heard that among the missing things was the splendid strip of bacon, on which he had cast many an envious eye, as he contemplated future enjoyment, with slices of the same sizzling in a hot frying pan, and sending off the odors that made him positively ravenous with hunger.

"Oh, but wasn't it good we came back just in time!" he exclaimed, as he looked around at the untidy interior of the tent, with a pile of provisions lying in the open center, where the eager intruder had thrown them. "He meant to just clean us out, that's what he did. I bet that Herb Benson had something to do with this mean old raid. He wanted to scare us off the island, or starve us out!"

If Max thought along these same lines he had not as yet mentioned the fact; but he did look queerly at Bandy-legs when he said this last sentence, as though the possibility of such a thing appealed to him.

"Was there only one feller here, or a crowd?" demanded Steve, as he eyed the pile of canned goods, that ham that was only partly cut, and a number of packages containing prunes, sugar, flour and such things, many of them as yet not even opened.

"Looks like there was half a dozen; or else the feller, if there was only one, had an appet.i.te that would beat Bandy-legs here all holler,"

declared Steve, who was really more enraged than any of the others.

All of them looked to Max to decide this question, satisfied that if the truth could be learned at all, he would unearth it.

"I think there was only a single thief here," he presently said. "And I'll tell you why I hit on that. He certainly carried off a few things, just as much as he could grab up in a big hurry when he heard us. Now, his first intention was to scoop in the whole business; you can see how he piled the stuff up here, meaning to get it all. And if there had been two, three, or more, they'd have made a bigger hole in our grub department than happened."