For a few minutes the men sat in wondering silence. The very boldness of the scheme was astounding. Here was a canal carefully and thoroughly prepared for the sole purpose of transporting stolen logs and not more than a hundred feet from the river where steamboats plied up and down and the rightful owner of the logs passed frequently.

“Some nerve!” Murphy finally exclaimed, expressing the thought which was uppermost in both their minds.

“Well, we’ve found where they go,” Scott remarked with a sigh of satisfaction, “but what do you suppose they do with them? Is there any railroad over that way or any other stream to the coast?”

Murphy shook his head. “Not a trace of one unless they have a secret one like this canal.”

“I suppose there is no telling how far this goes,” Scott mused, “but I have a hunch that we better tackle it a little carefully. Any man with the nerve to steal logs the way this fellow is stealing them probably would not hesitate at anything. I doubt if he would welcome a visit from a couple of forest service uniforms.”

Murphy felt for his holster and seemed comforted at finding it where it belonged. His Irish was rising fast at the prospect of a possible fight.

“Suppose we paddle slowly up the bayou,” Scott suggested, “and keep our eyes open. They have been undisturbed so long that I doubt if they keep any kind of guard and we ought to be able to see them before they see us.”

That plan suited Murphy perfectly. He laid his automatic on the bow of the bateau where it would be handy and paddled ahead. They went very slowly, sneaking cautiously up to every bend and stopping frequently to listen. They had covered at least a mile in this way without seeing any signs which looked suspicious or anything to indicate that they were getting any closer to their destination. Not a sound broke the afternoon stillness of the forest.

“Must be selling those logs in Mobile,” Murphy grumbled.

As they poked the bow of the bateau slowly around the next bend there was a tremendous splashing in the water ahead. Murphy snatched up his pistol and Scott whisked the bateau back under the protection of the bank with all his strength. They both looked rather foolish when a bunch of ducks rose noisily honking and finally made it out over the treetops some distance ahead of them.

“They were pretty nearly as badly scared as we were, anyway,” Murphy growled as he resumed his paddle.

Scott estimated that they had come at least four miles from the river and still there was no sign of logs or life. “Think we’ll have provisions enough to last us on this trip?” he asked.

The canal had cleared the river swamp now and lay in a narrow strip of baygall between ridges of pine forest which had been neither logged nor turpentined. They still talked with hushed voices though they were apparently miles from anywhere.

“I wonder if this neck connects with the big swamp over west?” Murphy said. “I have heard about that swamp but have never been there. They say it is a whale of a big one and runs down within a very few miles of the coast.”

“Shouldn’t wonder,” Scott growled as they paddled slowly along. “Seems as though it might connect with the Pacific Coast. Pity Columbus didn’t find it.”

It was getting late in the afternoon when they paused at a bend in the bayou to listen for the hundredth time. They straightened up suddenly and looked inquiringly at each other. The faint but unmistakable whine of a sawmill sounded plaintively from somewhere far ahead of them. The light of triumph was in their eyes now, but they were too excited to talk. Without a word they both bent to their work and paddled eagerly forward. The country on either side was more open now, and there was less chance of their running into any one unexpectedly. Every time they stopped to listen the whine of the saw was more distinct. It seemed too good to be true and they had to listen often to assure themselves that they were not dreaming.

At last they could see the smoke through the trees and finally reached a point where they could make out the hazy outlines of the camp. It was the crudest kind of an outfit. A small portable mill sat out in the open without the protection of even so much as a shed-roof, and scattered about it were three miserable cabins—mere board shacks. Only one little pile of lumber was in sight. They sat for a few minutes and gazed at it in silence.

“Well,” Scott remarked, “there she is. The next question is, how are we going to get close enough to identify our lumber without getting shot?”

Murphy’s Irish blood was boiling. He had been looking for those timber thieves for two years, and now that they were in sight he was for stalking in on them and arresting them.

“Rush ’em!” he exclaimed angrily. “Rush right in on them. Take them by surprise and we can arrest the whole outfit easy.”

“It might be possible, all right,” Scott replied, weighing the possibilities, “but it seems to me doubtful. We have only one gun. There are six of those fellows in sight and probably more in the cabins. If they were all in one bunch we might stand a show, but while we were covering the ones there at the mill it would be a cinch for any one in the cabin to pot us.”

Murphy had to admit the truth of that, but he was in favor of trying it anyway. “What are you going to do then?” he asked peevishly when Scott shook his head in disapproval of the scheme. “Not going to run home and let them get away?”

“No reason why they should run away when they do not know that we have found them. But I was not thinking of running away. My plan is to reconnoiter the place as closely as we can, find out how many men there are here, identify our logs, and possibly close in on them at night. We haven’t any warrant for them, and probably they are not the fellows who are stealing the stuff. They are only hired men and if we arrest them the real thieves who are engineering the job at a safe distance may get wind of it and get away. No, I think we better just hang around here and keep out of sight till we can find out who is running this outfit. Then we can nail him and we’ll have something worth while.”

“Hadn’t thought of that,” Murphy admitted, cooling off a little. “It would be too bad to lose the main guy after all. Best thing we can do is to take to the brush here and wait till dark. Can’t be over half an hour now.”

They tore their eyes from the mill and turned to examine the near-by brush for a good hiding place. “There is a good thick clump over there,” Scott said, pointing to a clump a little way ahead of them, “where we can hide the bateau and ourselves, too. It’s——”

The words died on his lips and his eyes almost popped out of his head. In that very clump of brush there were a pair of big eyes as round as his own and fixed full upon him. Blue, frightened eyes they were, and they no sooner found that they were observed than they disappeared like a flash. Scott shot the bateau forward to have a close look and was just in time to see a very small boy minus any clothes at all streaking it through the brush toward the camp as though his life depended on it—and he probably thought that it did. He had evidently been swimming in the bayou and had been cut off from his clothes by their approach.

“............