“Don’t borrow trouble, Snap,” answered the doctor’s son.  “Yet I agree with you, we must be more careful in the future.  Is your camera all right?”

“I think so.”

“Then let us take pictures of ourselves with the dead foxes,” went on Shep, and this was done, and later the photographs turned out very well.

Having finished with the picture-taking, the boys threw off their clothing and went for a swim in the clear, cool waters of Firefly Lake.

“Say, this is fine!” cried Snap enthusiastically as he splashed the water around.  “Makes a fellow feel a year younger, after such a hot tramp as we have had!”

“That’s what!” answered the doctor’s son.  “Look at this!” he added as he made a long dive from a rock beside which he knew the water to be deep.

They dove and swam and splashed around to their hearts’ content for a good quarter of an hour, and even had a little race to a snag sticking up from the bottom fifty yards from the rocks.  Then Shep said they had better dress and proceed on their way.

They ran out of the lake, shook themselves, and made for the spot whe`e they had left their clothing behind some bushes.  Each stared in amazement.  The clothing had been left in three heaps; now the garments were strewn around in helter-skelter fashion.

“Somebody has been here!” cried Snap.  “Is anything gone?” demanded Giant.  At this all took a hasty inventory of their possessions.

“My shirt is missing!” came from the doctor’s son.

“One of my socks is gone,” added Giant.

“My belt is gone,” came from Snap, “and so is my camera.”

“And my gun!” added Shep, looking around to where the weapons had rested against a tree.

“Boys, we have been robbed!”

“What enemy has done this?”

“Can this be the work of the Spink crowd?”

For a minute the talk was lively, and then the boys calmed down a little.  Even in their excitement they were glad that nothing more had been taken.

“I don’t think the Spink crowd did this,” said Snap.  “Ham Spink wouldn’t stop short of taking everything.”

“Exactly my idea of it,” answered Giant.

“Whoever it was had a queer idea of what to take,” said the doctor’s son slowly.  “A shirt, a belt, one sock, a camera and a gun.  Why in the name of goodness did he take one sock and not the other?”

“He certainly threw things around pretty well,” said Giant.  “Maybe it was a wild animal,” he continued suddenly.

“No wild animal would walk off with a camera and a gun, Giant,” returned Snap.  “Ha!  I have it!” he cried.  “That crazy hermit!”

“Maybe you’re right,” said Shep.  “It would be just like such a fellow to do a thing like this.”

“And if he did this he must certainly have taken the watch,” went on Snap.

“It would seem so.”

The boys lost no time in dressing.  As it was warm, Shep did not miss his shirt very much, nor did Giant miss his sock.  Having no belt, Snap used a piece of stout cord instead.