“I didn’t say it was up here,” explained Zeke.  “I said we’d found a boat where the men who took it had smashed.”

“How do you know it was smashed?” inquired the man with the scar.

“Tell him,” said Zeke abruptly, turning to Fred, “I wasn’t myself in the party,” he explained, “but this boy was and he knows all about it.”

“Pete was the one who found the boat,” exclaimed Fred, “but we all saw it.”

“We likewise also are looking for a lost diary,” broke in Zeke.

“It’s a nice place to look for that, too,” said the man with the scar.

For a moment the two visitors looked keenly at each other while neither spoke.

“I tell you,” said Fred excitedly in a whisper to George, “they are both bad men and I wish we were out of this.”

CHAPTER XVII

A DEPARTURE BY NIGHT

“If only John and Pete were here,” said Fred in a low voice to his companions as they withdrew to the border of the camp.

“But they aren’t here,” laughed George, “and there isn’t any use in wasting any time crying over their absence.”

“That’s right,” joined in Grant.  “We’re doing everything we can do to find them, and if we don’t find them it won’t be our fault.”

“Do you really think,” demanded Fred, “that they won’t be found?”

“No, I don’t think anything of the kind,” said Grant.  “I’m very sure they will be found.  All I’m saying is that it’s foolish to waste your time lamenting over what can’t be helped.”

“I’m not crying,” retorted Fred somewhat sharply.

“Yes, you are,” rejoined his friend.  “You’re wailing over the fact that John and Pete aren’t here.”

“Well, they aren’t here, and that’s one fact.”

“If you cry about it, that’s another.  My mother told me there are only two things a fellow never ought to worry about in this world.”

“What are they?” inquired Fred interested at once.

“The things you can help and the things you can’t.  There isn’t any use in worrying over things you can change, for if you’re able to change them, stop worrying and get at them and make them different.  If you can’t possibly change them, then all the worrying in the world won’t do you any good.”

“I’m wondering,” inquired Fired, turning as he spoke and glancing again at their uninvited visitors, “if those men are planning to stay here.”

“They certainly look the part now,” said George in a low voice.

“What can we do to get rid of them?” asked Fred.

Grant shook his head as he said, “I don’t want the contract myself of getting rid of them.  If you want to try it you’re welcome.”

“But I don’t see,” continued Fred, “why we’re bound to take them in and treat them as if they were our long lost brothers.  I would a good deal rather see John and Pete come marching into the camp.”