CHAPTER IV.

THE IGNORANCE OF STEP HEN.

All of them, guides as well as scouts, stared at the strange object which Step Hen was holding up.

“Looks like a little hand-bag of leather; but it’s been used a heap, I reckon,” suggested Davy Jones.

“Just what she is,” replied Step Hen, as he lowered the article; and something in his manner of doing this impelled Giraffe to remark:

“Reckon she must be kinder heavy, Step Hen?”

“Heft it for yourself, and see,” replied the other, as Giraffe came to his side.

“Whew! I should say, yes!” declared the tall member of the patrol, as he lifted the old black hand-bag, and held it out in a horizontal position for a few seconds. “All of five pounds there, if there’s a single one. Now, what d’ye suppose is in that thing?”

“And how did it ever come in them bushes; that’s what gets me?” queried Step Hen, staring at the bag, which he had taken again, as though half inclined to suspect that the mischievous little jinx, whom Giraffe always said played these mean tricks on him, might possess the power to change his black package into this weatherbeaten little bag.

“Oh! it’s old, you c’n see,” remarked Giraffe, carelessly. “P’raps the hunter that carried it up here got sick of his bargain; and slipping a few rocks inside, to weigh it down, he just gave her a heave out of sight.”

“Think so?” remarked Step Hen. “Well, anyhow, it don’t look a bit like that lost package of mine, does it?”

“Suppose you open it up,” suggested Allan; “it might be you’d find your missing things inside.”

Doubtless he only said this in a spirit of fun, in order to hasten Step Hen; but the other took it seriously.

“Now, however in the wide world would my packet come in here, Allan?” he asked. “None of the boys ever set eyes on this bag before, have you, fellers?”

Giraffe, Davy, and Bumpus thereupon solemnly raised, each one his right hand, and declared that to the best of their knowledge and belief they had never glimpsed that same bag until their comrade carried it out of the bushes.

“Now, open her up, Step Hen, and let’s see the kind of rocks it’s got inside,” Giraffe demanded.

Whereupon Step Hen proceeded to cautiously test the catch of the bag. Finding that it would give readily, he pressed it further, and then drew back the jaws of the leather receptacle.

“Rocks?” he ejaculated, scornfully, just as if he had never taken the least stock in that far-fetched theory himself; “what d’ye call that, fellers?”

He had thrust in a hand, and was now holding something aloft. The dancing light from the campfire shone upon the object, which seemed to glisten like polished steel.

Immediately Giraffe set up a laugh.

“Well, I declare, fellers,” he remarked, “some poor old carpenter’s gone and lost his kit of tools. Shows that Step Hen ain’t the only loony wanderin’ about in these here pine woods, droppin’ his things around loose, and then forgettin’ where he put ’em. And to think it should be the same sort of one that found these tools. Ain’t that a queer case, though?”

“Carpenter’s tools,” Step Hen went on, indignantly, as he held up a second, and then other articles, which he took from the bag; “did you ever watch a carpenter at work, Giraffe; and did you ever see him use tools like them? If you did, then believe me, that feller ought to a been in the lock-up, that’s what.”

“Lock-up!” repeated Giraffe after him, and he stared at Step Hen as though he believed the other might be trying to play some sort of a joke.

“That’s right, in the lock-up,” the other scout went on, firmly. “When I was down to New York with my dad last year, he had to see the Police Commissioner about a little business; and they were old friends too. I went along, and sat there in one of the offices nigh an hour. To amuse myself, I examined the heaps of queer things they had there, which I reckoned had been taken from all sorts of crooks that’d been arrested for years. And in the lot I saw some tools mighty like these, boys!”

“Wow, and again I say, wow!” murmured Giraffe.

“Thieves’ tools, hey?” grunted Bumpus, pushing forward to handle some of the shiny articles himself. “P’raps now, one of these here might be what they call a jimmy, and another a centerbit. I always used to read about such things in every story in the papers of a burglary down in the city.”

Davy also wanted to examine the things at close range, and so they were passed around. Even the two guides seemed to take a deep interest in the contents of the little old black bag; and for several minutes a buzz followed, as each voiced his opinion concerning the merits of the tools to accomplish such a job as breaking into a strong box of a bank.

“But just stop and think,” remarked Step Hen, presently, “how far this is from any town where these fellers could use their tools. No wonder they hid ’em in the bushes right here. The only thing they could expect to break into up here would be the game laws.”

“Or the river,” suggested Giraffe, with a sly glance toward Bumpus, who flashed him back a scornful look.

“My opinion is, fellows,” observed Allan, who thus far had not taken any part in the earnest discussion, “that these things might never have been lost at all.”

“Oh! then you think they hid ’em here?” asked Step Hen.

“Either that, or else just tossed them away, to get rid of carrying such a heavy package any longer,” the Maine boy went on. “Such men would never come up here to camp out, or to hunt. Only one thing would be apt to tempt them to dive into the woods like this; they expected to be hunted, and are on the way to the Canada border as fast as they can pack.”

Somehow, the idea seemed to please the rest of the scouts; and even Jim and Eli nodded their heads, as though they quite agreed with Allan, after he had evolved the suggestion, which likely enough would have never occurred to them.

“Say, d’ye suppose, now,” Giraffe asked, “that these jail birds could have cracked a crib before they took to the woods?”

“Well, just as like as not,” answered Allan; “though we can’t tell that so easy. They must have tried to get away with some loot, though, and found the officers hot after them. So, to escape being caught they’ve taken to the woods.”

“But that might be jumpin’ from the frying-pan into the fire,” Davy declared. “If they happened to be greenhorns, now, it’d be apt to go hard with ’em up here, with the winter comin’ on, p’raps no blankets along, and only a little grub. Huh! they might even wish they’d let the officers ketch ’em. Three meals, such as they are in jail, are better than nothin’ to eat in the wilderness.”

“Oh!” Allan went on to say, “the chances are, they had a fellow along who knew more or less about what to do in the woods, and what not to do; because you see, they seemed to get up this far all right.”

“What if there was a big reward out for their capture, and we managed to crowd the bunch to the wall?” suggested Bumpus, enviously. “Say, we’d be fixed then for a lot more of outings, wouldn’t we, fellers?”

Allan laughed. It was so strange to hear Bumpus, usually the most peaceable of the entire patrol, speak in so fierce a tone.

“You don’t stop to mention what these desperate chaps would be doing all that time, Bumpus,” he remarked, drily. “There must be two of them, perhaps more; and it stands to reason that they’re hard cases, ready to fight at the drop of the hat. I guess we’ll have to just attend to our own affairs, and let the sheriff look after these jail birds.”

“But if we happened to run foul of them, wouldn’t we be doin’ the right thing to try and grab the lot?” demanded Bumpus, loth to admit defeat when he had been conjuring up a bright idea.

“Certainly, if it could be done without too much risk,” replied the assistant scoutmaster, readily enough. “Such men are outlaws to society, and it’s the duty and privilege, I’ve heard my father say, of all honest persons to capture them, in case the chance comes along.”

“We’ve got a rifle or a shotgun apiece; and each of the guides is provided with his gun too, so we ought to turn the trick easy enough,” Bumpus continued. “Eight determined men against two, or p’raps three, you see. They may be tough characters, when they’re in cities, but I just bet you now their old knees knock together if they saw a row of eight firearms all aimin’ at their heads. That’s talkin’ some.”

“I should say it was, from you, Bumpus,” remarked Allan; “but don’t get too anxious to come to close quarters with these men. I can give a guess what they’re like. I’ve seen what they call yeggs before now, roving burglars who play the part of tramps, so as to get a chance to look country banks over, and break in some dark night, when the town people are sound asleep. And I want to tell you, boys, I don’t like the breed. If I have my choice I’m going to mind my own business, and let the law officers attend to theirs.”

“And,” broke in Davy Jones, “up here our business is first of all following the trail of Mr. Carson and his two guides; and after that, to get just as much hunting of the big game as we can.”

“What you going to do with all these clever little tools, Step Hen?” asked Giraffe. “I hope now, you don’t expect to tote ’em along with you? If they turned out too heavy for the fleeing yeggmen to keep, think of how you’ll suffer. Better give ’em a heave into the bushes again, and say good-bye. They might get you into a peck of trouble, boy.”

“Oh! I don’t know,” remarked Step Hen, “I’ll keep the bag till mornin’ anyhow, an’ then let Thad say whether we want to pick out a few of these things, just to remember the affair by.”

He laid the numerous tools in a heap beside him, and then turned the old hand-bag over, as though meaning to clean it out before replacing the contents.

“Hello! what’s this?” he exclaimed; “Oh! I thought at first it was another tool; but seems like it’s only an old stick of dirty gray mud. Queer how that could a got in this bag, ain’t it? Whatever did them yeggmen want carryin’ hard mud around with ’em, I wonder?”

He drew his hand back, evidently with the intention of throwing the article into the blaze, when a hand clutched his wrist, and the voice of Thad, a bit husky, sounded close to his ear:

“Hold on! don’t you think of tossing that into the fire, Step Hen! Why, are you crazy? Didn’t you ever see such a thing before in your life. No wonder Allan, there, was nearly scared to death when he saw what you meant to do; because Step Hen, this stick of innocent mud, as you called it, is really dynamite!”

Step Hen weakly allowed his hand to open, and the scoutmaster possessed himself of the deadly four-inch stick of explosive.