What was the answer?  Had some Indian tribe taken to farming?  With the forests alive with game, the streams with fish, this seemed impossible.  Of a sudden, the boy started.  It was, of course—­

The sudden snapping of a twig in the underbrush brought his mind back with a jerk to their present plight.  He wished they had brought the rifles from the plane.  Some animal was lurking there in the shadows.  Wolves, grizzlies, some unknown terror, perhaps?

Then, in another second his eyes bulged.  In an open space, between two spruce trees, where the moon shone brightly, had appeared for a moment a patch of white.  Then, amid the crashing of small twigs, the thing was gone.  In childhood, Bruce had been told many stories of ghosts and goblins by his Irish nurse.  He had never overcome his dread of them.  But it was with the utmost difficulty that he suppressed a shout.  Then he laughed softly, for the crackling twigs told him he had seen a creature of flesh and blood, no ghost.  He chuckled again and far in the dark a hoot-owl seemed to answer him and his company was a source of comfort.

Yet, here was, after all, another problem:  What was this white-coated creature?  Of all the wild things of the forest, none was white save the Arctic wolf.  It was doubtful if he roamed so far south, especially in summer, and besides, this creature was too large and heavy to be a wolf.  Bruce thought of all the animals he knew and gave it up.  It might have been a cow.  Cows in this wilderness did not seem more improbable than a wheat-field, but the creature had been too light of tread for that.  Could it have been an Indian dressed in white, tanned deerskin?  He was inclined to take this for the right solution, and wondered if he should awaken his companions.  He could not tell what danger threatened.  Finally he decided to let them sleep.  He would keep watch.  The three of them could do no more.

Once more his mind turned to the problem of the wheat.  What was it that he had just concluded?  Oh, yes, Timmie!  Why might not Timmie have camped here and planted this wheat?  But twelve years?  How had he lived?  Whence had come the seed wheat?  There were a hundred questions connected with such a solution.  Ah, well, morning would tell.  There would be a cabin somewhere on the edge of the field and they would eat.  Eat?  For the first time Bruce realized that he had not eaten for hours; was very hungry.  Securing some malted-milk tablets, carried for emergency rations, he dissolved them in his mouth.  A wonderfully soothing effect they had.  Propping himself against the trees, he closed his eyes for a second, and before he could pry them open again, he, too, was fast asleep.

When he awoke it was broad daylight and his companions were already astir.

“Did you fellows wake up last night?” he asked, rubbing his eyes sleepily.

Barney and the Major shook their heads.

“Then you didn’t see it?”