The camp consisted of three wall tents, a small tent of modified tepee fashion, and a lean-to used for cooking, outside of which was erected a huge, rough dining board. The whole appearance of the place was very homelike. Woods trophies and articles of woodcraft handiwork hung about from the low-spreading branches, and it was evident that the campers had been there for some time. Before each of the wall tents was planted a patrol flag, and gathered about the cheerful fire was as merry a company as Gordon had ever seen. A genial-looking man of perhaps thirty-five years was sitting amongst a score or so of boys, who in negligée scout attire squatted and lolled about him, as if intent upon what he was saying.
All this Gordon saw from a distance. But before he had approached within fifty yards of the camp, and before he could possibly have been seen and scarcely heard, a tall boy rose suddenly, looked intently in his direction, and called:
“Who’s there?”
“Gee, he’s a peach, all right!” breathed Gordon, never answering, but rushing pell-mell into their midst. Every boy rose, surveying him wonderingly. The man remained seated. Gordon paid not the slightest heed to the gaping throng, but made a bee-line for the man and, standing panting and disheveled before him, made him the full salute. Then, breathlessly, he gasped out his errand. Instantly all was activity.
“Call in Billy,” said the man, quietly, as he took a railroad lantern from a tent pole. “You, my boy,” he went on to Gordon, “will stay here. Who are you, anyway?”
“Kid—I mean, Gordon Lord, sir; 1st Oakwood New Jersey, Troop. My patrol leader and I came up to see if we could find camp—our own camp, I mean. They’re somewhere up this way. I—”
“Well, you can tell me the rest when we get back,” said the man, cheerfully. “Where’s Billy, anyway? Give him another call, George.”
A succession of shrill whistles was repeated, and presently a boy wearing spectacles came dashing into camp.
“Get your kit, Billy, and come along,” said the man. “Walter’s gone down that chasm in the farther woods—head cut and leg in a bad way. Here, Wentworth, you and Norton get the stretcher and come along—you’d better come too, Charlie.”
“Sure you can find the place?” asked Gordon, a little doubtful.
“Oh, yes,” answered the man. “We put up the logs. Is Cattell there? Here, Cattell, you rake up some grub for this boy. Go over there, my boy, and let the Ravens take care of you.”
The Ravens knew how to do more than croak, as Gordon presently found, for they sat him at the rustic table and gave him such a helping of hunters’ stew as would have sufficed for the entire patrol. He entered upon the ambitious task of eating it with the same nonchalant determination that had led him into the woods, without the slightest idea of the magnitude of the task before him, but with cheerful confidence in his ability to see it through somehow.
While he ate, the boys gathered about him, plying him with questions, and soon had the full story of his trip and the circumstances of his finding the injured boy. He learned that they were a troop of Albany scouts, three full patrols, that the man was Mr. Wade, their scoutmaster, and that Billy, or “Four Eyes,” or “Doc,” as he was indifferently called, was their “First Aid” boy, who had attained to a superlative proficiency in that art. He learned also that Walter, the injured boy, was, as he had surmised, trying to complete his fourth test for first-class scout, on his way back from a visit to the city.
“They have pink chalk in Albany,” said Gordon, “haven’t they?”
“Sure they have,” answered several boys.
“We have that in Oakwood, too,” Gordon commented.
Presently, a tall, serious-looking boy vaulted up on the table and began to question Gordon while he ate.
“You say you saw a footprint just as you left the chasm on this side?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see any more of them?”
“No, it was too dark in the woods. In a few minutes when the moon came out and the woods thinned out the other side of the hill I saw a wet spot on a stone.”
“Footprint?”
“No—place where a turtle had been.”
“Well, what of that?”
“Turtle went away.”
“What of it?”
“Somebody must have passed.”
“Bully for you!” chimed in several voices.
“That’s nothing,” said Gordon, encouraged. “Do you know how—”
“Just a minute,” interrupted the serious-looking boy. “After you saw the turtle mark, didn’t you see any other sign?”
“No,” answered Gordon. “I was so crazy to get here that I didn’t look.”
“Yes, of course,” agreed the boy. “You say you saw the wet spot near the swamp, then you started up the hill crossing the road?”
“Yes.”
“Have some more stew?”
“Y-es.”
“Here, Cattell, fill her up again! He’s game.” Then to Gordon, “Did you find any trail up the hill?”
“No—didn’t look. If I hadn’t spotted you fellows from the top of the hill, I’d have gone back down again, most likely, and tried to pick her up, bird’s-eye.”
“You mean with the fire, the way you did before?”
“Yes.”
A murmur of admiring comment passed through the group, and one or two enthusiastic boys pounded Gordon on the shoulder. But the serious-looking boy was absorbed in thought.
“Whoever it was,” he finally said, “must have turned down the road—or up.”
“Sure,” said Gordon.
It was characteristic of him that the suspicion of foul play had sat but lightly in his thoughts up to this moment. The footprint near the chasm had puzzled him and he had attached a significance to the wet spot on the rock—perhaps a greater significance than it deserved. He had also wondered how the three slender logs, out of which he had fashioned the rough couch, came to be at the bottom of the chasm. But he was altogether too lighthearted to connect any or all of these circumstances with the idea of a crime. With him, tracking and such arts were a delightful species of amusement, and the idea of using these things as a means to a serious end had never entered his head.
But now he realized that this serious, precise, calculating boy who sat at his elbow was endeavoring to squeeze information out of these trivial signs and make them point to the solution of a secret, the very existence of which Gordon had hardly suspected. He perceived, somewhat to his annoyance, that he had only noticed those things which appealed to his romantic love of woodcraft, and that certain other things which Harry Arnold might have seen had entirely escaped him.
“You say the pamphlet was lying in the mud?”
“Yes—it—it never occurred to me how it got there.”
“Of course not—you were in a great hurry. Don’t think I’m criticising you. You’ve got the silver cross coming to you for what you did.”
“Honest—do you think so?”
“It would be a queer committee that would refuse it.”
“Cracky!” said Gordon.
“Have another dish of stew?”
“N-no.”
“Now listen. There were no tracks, prints, signs of any kind in the chasm?”
“No, the mud was so thick it would close right up. Besides—”
“Yes, I understand; you were busy and excited, and you did fine. But I’ll tell you something that you didn’t know. That boy had forty dollars with him to buy a canoe. At least, I suppose he had it. He intended to get it while he was at home.”
“You think somebody robbed him?” said Gordon.
“I think it’s likely. There were two young men here, strangers, just dropped in on us a few days ago. Walter and the rest of us talked pretty freely about his trip to Albany.”
“Yes, and he said he was going to get the money,” chimed in another boy.
“He expected to come back last night, too,” said another.
“Who were the strangers?” Gordon ventured.
“No idea,” answered one of the boys, “............