CHAPTER XIX.

THE TRAIL OF THE MARAUDER.

When they heard the dreadful news the rest of the scouts looked almost frightened. It was bad enough to know that some evil intentioned man was on the island with them; but that he should have actually crept into their camp while they slept, and very nearly made a clean sweep of their already limited stock of provisions, seemed close to a tragedy. When you threaten to cut off their food supply it is hitting boys in their weakest place.

There was an immediate start for the spot where they had placed their haversacks and the food on the preceding night. Thad, however, held them back.

"Don't all rush so," he told them. "We want to look around, and see if we can find out anything. If everybody tramples the ground it'll be little use trying. Let Allan and Giraffe help me look first. We'll report anything we find."

The advice sounded reasonable to the rest; so despite their eagerness to take a hand in the game they held back while the three scouts proceeded to examine the ground.

It was not long before Allan made a discovery.

"I think here's where he crawled along," he told Thad, who was close by; "you can see that something's dragged here, which must have been his knees. Yes, and there's where the toe of his shoe made a dent in the soil, with another and still another further on. And now he lay flat on his stomach. Perhaps one of us happened to move just then, and he was afraid of being seen."

"You're right, Allan," remarked Thad, after taking a good look; "and to think it possible he was crouching here in the shadows when I got up and threw some wood on the fire. If I knew that I'd feel pretty sore."

"Well, he went on again pretty soon, didn't he?" observed Giraffe, who was hovering close by, and keeping close watch on everything that was done.

"Yes, that's what he did," resumed Allan, also starting on once more, following the tracks that looked so strange they would have sorely puzzled members of the patrol like Smithy and Bumpus, who were not noted as trackers; "and headed direct for the place where we stacked our things up."

"It was a lucky thing none of us happened to leave our guns here with all the rest of the duffel," observed Giraffe exultantly, as though it gave him considerable satisfaction to find that he had not been quite as foolish as might have happened.

"He finally got to our stuff," Allan went on, "and rising to his knees started to pick out what he wanted. I guess he must have been pretty hungry, because grub was what he seemed to be after. Not one of our haversacks is gone, you can see. He took that piece of bacon we fetched from the boat, the packages of crackers, and--yes, the cheese is lost in addition, also a can of corn and the coffee. Fact is, it looks as if we didn't have much left, outside this package of hominy, and the little tin box of tea you fetched along, Thad!"

Giraffe gave vent to a hollow groan.

"It's just dreadful, that's what!" he said, with a gulp, as though receiving the sad news that he had lost his best friend; "just think of grits and tea for our breakfast, and not another thing! The worst is yet to come, though, for we won't get _anything_ for dinner, you know! Why, I'll be all skin and bone if things keep on going from bad to worse like that."

"Bob White won't think it's so tough, if he can have his grits," remarked Allan; "but breakfast to a New England boy stands for ham and eggs, flapjacks with maple syrup, and always coffee and cold pie."

"Stop stretching out the agony, can't you?" said Giraffe, holding both hands to his ears as though trying to shut out the mention of such delightful dishes; "it's cruelty to animals to talk that way, Allan. But, Thad, what are we going to do about this same thing? Can't we take up the trail, and try to get our stuff back? After all, this old island is only of a certain size, and with eight of us in line we ought to comb it from top to bottom. I feel like Sheridan did when he met the Union troops running away in a panic from Cedar Creek, and yelled out: 'Turn the other way, boys, turn the other way! We'll lick 'em out of their boots yet! We've just got to get those camps back!' You see he was thinking of all the good stuff they'd lost with the camps. So are we."

"Allan, suppose we look to see which way he went off, because it couldn't have been along the same line as his advance?" suggested the scout master.

He knew considerable about these things himself, but trusted to Allan to learn facts that might even have eluded his observation. Allan had been in Maine and the Adirondacks a portion of his life, and picked up many clever ways from association with the guides that made him invaluable when it came to a question of woodcraft.

"That's a good idea, Thad," was what the other said in reply; and already his sharp eyes had begun to look for signs.

These were easily found, for the unseen thief had crawled away in the same fashion as he made his advance, though a bit more clumsily, which was doubtless owing to the fact of his being more heavily laden at the time.

Step Hen, Bob White and the other three were of course watching the every movement of the experienced trackers with great interest. They took some little satisfaction in trying to guess just what each movement signified. Bumpus and Smithy of course would never have been able to figure these things out, but the other three had more practical knowledge and could hit closer to the mark.

"There," Step Hen was saying eagerly; "they're taking stock of what's been hooked, and my stars! just look at the way Giraffe throws his hands up, will you? If that doesn't tell the story, then I'm away off in my guess. I just wager we've been cleaned out for keeps, and our little tummies will call in vain for their accustomed rations. I wonder how it feels to starve to death!"

"Oh! quit talking that way, Step Hen," wailed Bumpus; "we ain't going to waste away like all that. Give Thad a chance to think up how to win out. Besides, didn't you hear Giraffe say there was lots of fat game on this island; yes, and fish in the river to boot. I'm not going to give up so easy; there's always _something_ to fall back on, if it gets to the worst."

"Yes," added Step Hen maliciously, "that's what shipwrecked sailors have to do when they cast lots; and I'm glad now I wasn't built like a roly-poly pudding. It's too tempting when hard times come along."

Bumpus, of course, understood that his chum was only joking, but nevertheless he drew a long breath, and remained very quiet for quite some time after that, as though busied with uneasy thoughts.

"Now they're starting off again," remarked Davy, "and I guess it's to follow the trail of the thief away. I wonder if we could track him to where he hangs out, so as to make him hand over our property."

"I allow, suh," Bob White broke in with, "that by the time we did that same there would be mighty little of our food left. He must have been pretty hungry to take the chances he did when he crawled into our camp, and with all these guns around in plain sight."

"Let's keep along after the boys," suggested Step Hen, "and see what they run up against."

The idea appealed to his companions, for they all started off, though maintaining the same relative distance from Thad and his backers, so as not to interfere with the work. Step Hen took occasion to bend down when he came upon a spot where the imprint of the unknown man's knee could be seen, and looked at it intently, though finally giving it up as a task beyond his ability.

"Knees all make the same kind of dragging mark to me," he told the others, who had waited to hear his report, "and I can't tell one from another. If it was Bumpus here, now, who had done this trick in his sleep, I wouldn't be able to say for sure, though like as not he'd bear deeper'n this mark shows."

"Well, since Bumpus wasn't outside of his blanket once all night long, you can't saddle this job on his poor shoulders. He's got enough to carry as it is, see?" and the stout boy put all the emphasis possible on that last word, as though he meant to make it decisive.

"They seem to be getting close to the bushes now," Bob White observed.

"And once he got in there mebbe the thief would rise to his feet to walk away," added Step Hen. "If Thad beckons you'll know he's settled it in his mind to follow the trail, and wants all of us who own guns to rally around him."

"How about the rest; what will they be doing?" asked Smithy.

"Tending camp, of course," replied the other. "Think now we know we've got a thief for a neighbor we want him to steal our blankets next? A nice pickle we'd be in without some way to keep warm nights. Remember, if you are left on guard, to defend the blankets with your very lives, both of you!"

This sort of lurid talk of course thrilled Bumpus very much, for he had a habit of taking what the others said literally, and could not see the vein of humor apt to lie back of bombastic vaporings. He was rubbing his fat hands one over the other in a nervous way, and alternately watching what Step Hen did, and then how the others were coming on.

They could see that Thad and his two fellow scouts were just back of the first fringe of bushes. They had possibly made some sort of discovery, because all of them seemed to be down on hands and knees, with their faces close to the earth, and apparently examining certain impressions.

"I wonder what's up now?" ventured Davy.

"They've run on something that's staggered the bunch, you can see easily enough," Step Hen went on to say excitedly; "and I'm trying to make up my mind whether after all it _was_ a man crawling along that made those queer marks. P'raps, now, some sort of big wild animal might have done it. We haven't seen a single footprint, you remember, to tell the story. I wish I knew what they've run across. Why don't they call us over, and let us in? It isn't just fair to keep us worrying like we are."

Just as though Thad might have heard this complaint on the part of Step Hen, he turned toward them, and raising his hand beckoned.

"There, boys, he wants us to come over!" exclaimed Davy, exultantly; "I thought it'd strike us pretty quick; Thad isn't the kind to forget his mates. And we'll soon be put wise to the facts."

They hurried to join the other three, who still stood at the same place, ever and anon looking seriously down at the ground, as though hardly able to believe the evidence of their eyes.

When Step Hen came running with the other four tagging at his heels, Thad held up his hand.

"Hold on right there, boys!" he remarked; "we don't want you to cut in and rub it all away before you've had a chance to look for yourselves."

Of course this caused them to turn their attention to the ground, and it was easy to see that the crawling thief had here risen to his full height, though possibly bending over more or less as he continued his retreat.

"Then it was a man, after all!" was what Bumpus said; and there was a positive air of relief about his voice, as though he had taken Step Hen's hint seriously, and even fancied a terrible wild beast might be hovering near them.

"Yes, but look closer, and see if you can recognize anything familiar about the marks?" advised Thad.

Accordingly, all of them leaned over and looked.

It was Step Hen who gave the first startled cry.

"Oh! Thad, what does this mean?" he burst out with; "it's the same broken shoe, bound together with an old rag, that we saw when we looked for the marks of Wandering George, in the mud of the road; but how in the wide world could he get over here?"