CHAPTER XX.

A WONDERFUL FIND.

“Do you really think they meant to shoot you, Thad?” asked Step Hen, after the fat boy had quieted down somewhat.

“We’ve been talking that over,” the patrol leader replied; “and come to the conclusion that the shot was only meant as a warning for us to draw up, and haul off; to tell us that they were desperate men, and would not stand for any nonsense from a hunting party.”

“But that bullet _did_ whine, I tell you, fellers;” declared Davy, emphatically; “no other word would explain just how it sounded, when she went zipping past, so close to our heads that we all ducked without thinkin’.”

“And like as not,” remarked Allan, who thus far had taken no part in the discussion, “if we start taking up their trail in the morning, and come anywhere close to our birds, we’ll be apt to more than hear the whine of a bullet. They’re bad men, Sheriff Green told us, and if put in a hole, with a chance of spending some years in prison, wouldn’t mind wounding a few of us—perhaps worse than that, even.”

Thad looked serious.

“I’ve been considering that matter,” he announced, “and trying to make up my mind just what a party of Boy Scouts, caught in such a puzzle, ought to do. If our real scoutmaster, Dr. Philander Hobbs, was only here, that would be a question for him to decide. I wish we had him along with us right now.”

“And the rest of us are mighty glad business kept him tied down at home, just at the time we had this great chance to come up into the Maine woods,” chuckled Step Hen.

“You’re as able to settle anything as well as Dr. Philander,” declared Allan. “And so, please let us know what came of your thinking this subject over; because we all know you too well, Thad, to believe you’d ever drop it without hatching out some sort of a scheme.”

“That’s the ticket; we all want to know,” echoed Bumpus.

Of course this sort of talk must have been exceedingly pleasant to the young patrol leader. He would not have been a boy had he not been thrilled by this showing of confidence which his chums placed in his ability as a manager and scoutmaster; and so he hastened to oblige the eager demands of the others.

“While we were tramping along homeward,” Thad continued, “I got to figuring how best we ought to act. You see, somehow that thing of chasing after those toughs didn’t appeal to me very much, after hearing how a lump of lead can sound when it’s passing by so close to your head. And in the end I had an idea. If you think it’s worth anything, why, we might try the same out.”

“Sure we will!” declared Giraffe.

“And we know it’s the right stuff, even before you start in to explain,” Step Hen volunteered.

“Don’t be too sure of that,” laughed Thad; “but here’s the scheme, boys, and let’s hear what you think of it. Now, in the morning, sometime, we’ll just pack up, and start along with our paddles, as if we meant to keep it going through the whole blessed day. But that’ll only be a big bluff, you understand; because, when we’ve got about a mile or so above here, and the coast seems clear, why, we can land, hide our stuff, perhaps leaving one to guard the same, perhaps, and the rest put back to the cabin here.”

“Wow! that’s the thing!” exclaimed Giraffe. “I get the idea, Thad. You expect we’ll hide in here, and gobble the gentlemen up as soon as they come along; ain’t that what you mean, now?”

“Not quite,” said Thad. “It might answer just as well, in case when we got back here we could be sure they hadn’t arrived before us, and were already quartered in the cabin. But if that proved to be the case, why, we’d set to work and try to surprise Charlie Barnes and his pals. You see, whatever we do, we want to keep in the background till we’re just ready to spring our trap; and in that way prevent them from doing us any bodily harm. I’m in charge of the patrol, and I’d feel pretty bad, now, if on going home I had to show up with a bunch of cripples on my hands. That’s what keeps me guessing, and trying to accomplish things without taking too much risk.”

“It’s a good scheme, all right!” commented Step Hen.

“That’s what I say, too,” added Bumpus.

Davy, Allan and Giraffe also declared that they liked the plan immensely; and even Eli Crookes grinned, Jim nodded his head in appreciation; while Sebattis smoked on, and watched Thad admiringly out of the corner of his black eye, as if he had never before run across such a smart lad, and wondered what it meant.

“But of course,” Thad went on to say, “the success of such a plan depends altogether on one thing to begin with.”

“You mean whether they’re bound to come to the cabin here?” asked Allan.

“That’s it,” the scout leader went on, calmly. “I thought that all over carefully, and decided that, judging from the actions of that man in looking in here, as well as their hanging around the vicinity when they had ought to be well on the way to the Canadian border, that there must be some sort of unusual attraction about this same old cabin for those rascals!”

“Go on, Thad; we’re catching on to what you’ve got in mind,” hinted Allan.

“We happen to know,” said Thad; “that this chief hobo, who calls himself Charlie Barnes now, though he may have gone by another name years back, must have been a Maine guide once on a time. If so, he is well acquainted up in this region, and must know all about this abandoned cabin. Now, if so be the third chap is sick, or badly hurt, as we’ve guessed, why, where could they find a better place to stay for a while than right here?”

“Seems like it,” admitted Giraffe; “and say, p’raps that’s just why they cribbed your venison like they did. If they expect to hole up here for some weeks, lyin’ low while the sheriff and his posse go chasin’ all over the country lookin’ for the runaways, why, they’d need a heap of grub; and so they just couldn’t resist the temptation to grab your little buck. It’d supply their wants for a long time, if they only jerked the meat the way the Indians do, and made it into pemmican.”

“Glad to see you take that view of the matter. Giraffe,” Thad continued, for it was always an object with him, as the leader of the patrol, to tempt his scouts to think for themselves, and not depend wholly on others to plan things.

“But Thad,” remarked Allan, about that time,—he had been watching the face of the other for signs that would tell him what Thad had on his mind; “was this the _only_ thing you stirred up, that would be apt to keep these fellows wanting to get in this cabin so badly?”

“Well, honest now, Allan,” replied the other, smilingly, “it wasn’t. I figured along another line too. I said to myself, that supposing now, a year or so ago this same hard case of a Charlie Barnes had made another haul, and escaped to the woods with his plunder, where would he be apt to hide that same until the time when he could add to the pile, and then skip across the border? And boys, I thought that this deserted old cabin would offer him about as snug a hiding-place for his loot as any place I knew!”

“Oh! Thad, do you really think that?” exclaimed Bumpus, a smile appearing on his plump face; “just imagine us diggin’ up treasure, fellers, would you; gold, and jewels, and all sorts of precious things that these desperate yeggs have hooked in their bold operations? And when we restored the same to the original owners, how they’d pour the fat rewards into our pockets. Why, we’d just as like as not have our names in all the papers down in New York, and be _fa_mous.”

“Hold on,” said Thad, “you make me think of the girl who was tripping to market with a basket of eggs, and saying to herself, that after she’d sold those she’d buy a pig; and when it grew up, she’d take that money and buy a calf; and then, after that grew up to be a cow, with the money she’d get from selling all the milk she could lay a nice sum by, so that when the right young man came along she’d have enough to get her outfit with, and——”

“Then she tripped once too often, fell over, and every egg was broken,” broke in Bumpus, with a shout. “Sure, I’ve heard my mother tell that story. It means we hadn’t ought to figure too far ahead. But Thad. I want to say, I like your scheme; and in the mornin’ we ought to turn this here old place upside-down, huntin’ in every nook and cranny for the hobo’s plunder.”

“Not forgetting that loft up yonder, where our friend, the bear—” began Giraffe, and suddenly broke off with a laugh, as he remembered that in the other excitement he had forgotten all about his private surprise.

He immediately went and picked up the bearskin, and held it up before the admiring eyes of Thad and Davy, who immediately started to ask innumerable questions.

The story was by degrees told, and the late comers allowed to taste the beautiful honey. Thad declared he had noticed that Bumpus and Giraffe looked a little swollen about the head, but other things had kept him from asking the reason, up to now.

The hour was growing pretty late, but strange to say none of the scouts seemed to feel sleepy but Bumpus, who nodded occasionally as he sat there, trying to listen to the conversation that passed among his mates.

Thad had meanwhile been using his eyes to some advantage. He noticed that the stones about the hearth were rather large, and to his mind one of them had the appearance of having been recently disturbed. Suddenly getting up, as the fire burned low, and afforded him an opportunity to come near without being scorched, Thad worked away for a minute or so, trying to insert his fingers under this certain hearth stone.

“Here, try this for a lever, Thad,” remarked Allan, handing him a thick, short stick; for somehow he had quickly guessed what the other had in his mind, and was naturally intensely interested in the result.

So Thad, by inserting this under the stone, was enabled to raise it up. Breathlessly the others leaned forward to watch the result; for by now of course even the aroused Bumpus had guessed what Thad was doing.

The patrol leader seemed to be fumbling around in some sort of little cavity he had found under the hearth stone. Then, with an exclamation, he drew some object into view, and laid it on the floor. It seemed to be a bundle of old clothes; but when Thad, with eager hands, had unrolled these, the scouts held their very breath at the sight that met their astonished eyes.

Thad had figured it all out, and now they understood just why that leader of the yeggmen was so determined to get into the old abandoned cabin in the woods; he had hidden the proceeds of other robberies there, and wished to take it all along with him when he crossed over into a safe asylum in Canada.