“Why, you poor ninny, the reason is as plain as the nose on your face, Bandy-legs, and that’s not invisible by a big sight.  When a black fox pelt will fetch a thousand dollars, more or less, and can’t well be traced once it gets mixed with other pelts, it stands to reason that any thief would want to steal it.  As to your doubting that there are any other people up in this section, you seem to forget, Bandy-legs, that around noon today we sighted a plain smoke some miles away, which we opined must have been made by some advance hunters, waiting for the law to be off deer.  Well, why couldn’t it have been the people Obed says he fears, who made that smoke?  Now, for my part, I believe every word Obed Grimes said.  He’s the straight goods every time, and you can see it in his eye, for he looks you direct in the face.”

Thereupon, Bandy-legs, as though realizing that he had raised a hornet’s nest about his ears, deemed it the part of discretion to shrug his shoulders after the manner of one who, “convinced against his will is of the same opinion still.”

“We’ll let the subject drop, Steve,” he said, hastily.  “It ain’t worth quarreling over.  The proof of the pudding is in the eating of it; and tomorrow we’ll know what’s what.  But remember, if it turns out that we’ve been bamboozled, don’t blame me, because I’ve warned you all.”

“If we had a chill from every warning you’ve sprung on us, Bandy-legs,” Steve told him, witheringly, “why, say, we’d have gone all to pieces long before now.  You’re a regular old bad-weather prognosticator, that’s what you are.”

“That’s right, get to calling names.  It’s a habit with people who know they are in the wrong,” grumbled Bandy-legs; but, nevertheless, he “drew within his shell,” and said nothing further about Obed Grimes or his suspicions concerning the same.

CHAPTER V

PACKING OVER THE “CARRY”

Later on the conversation began to lag.  Steve was noticed drowsily nodding his head in a suggestive way; and then after a sudden start he would look around aggressively, as if to remark:  “who said I was sleepy?” but within three minutes he would be at it again.

In fact all of the boys were really tired out.  The day’s tramp had been a difficult one, even for fellows accustomed to such things; and those regular Adirondack packs, with a band crossing the forehead in the usual way, had seemed doubly heavy before they decided to stop for the night.

Of course there were sounds to be heard all around them, but “familiarity breeds contempt,” and from Max down they were all accustomed to hearing similar noises whenever they spent nights in the open.  The owl would whinny or hoot according to his species; the loon send forth his agonizing and weird shriek from some distant lake; a fox might bark sharply and fretfully, or two quarrelsome ’coons dispute over a bit of food they had discovered—­all this went with the camping business, and indeed it would have seemed odd to those boys had the usual accompaniment been missing.