“’Twere a week ago they were here whatever,” observed David, rising upon his feet after a close scrutiny upon hands and knees.  “I’m thinkin’ we’ll see no sign of un now to help us trail un to the rock the writin’ tells about.”

“The ground was hard froze a week ago just as ’tis now,” said Lige.  “They’d be leavin’ no tracks on froze ground.”

“They makes the tracks that shows here whether the ground were froze or not,” observed Seth.

“The gravel were loose and dry so ’tweren’t froze,” explained Lige, “but away from the dry gravel ’twere all froze, and they’d make no tracks to show.  Leastways that’s how I thinks about un.”

“That’s good logic,” said Doctor Joe.  “I’m afraid we’ll have to find the rock without the assistance of any tracks to guide us.  There will surely be other signs, however, and we’ll look for them while we look for the rock.”

“Suppose now we scatters and looks up along the brook and along the ridge for the rock the pacin’ were done from,” suggested Andy. “’Tis like to be a different lookin’ rock from most of un around here or they wouldn’t have picked un.”

“And ’tis like to be a big un too,” volunteered Micah.  “They’d be pickin’ no little rock for that, whatever.  I’m thinkin’ ’twill be easy to know un if we sees un.”

“Yes,” agreed Doctor Joe, “the rock is probably larger or in some other way noticeably different from the others.  It may be along the brook, or it may not.  They were hunting.  It may be a rock where they camped, or where they agreed to meet after their hunt, and probably where they boiled their kettle.”

“They weren’t Bay folk, whatever,” asserted David.  “The writin’ ain’t like any of the Bay folkses writin’.  None of un here could write so fine.”

“None of the Bay folk would be hidin’ things that way either,” said Andy.  “If ’twere anything small enough to hide in a tree they’d been takin’ un with un and not leavin’ un behind.  If ’twere too big to carry, they’d just left un in a cache and come back for un when they gets ready and not do any writin’ about un.”

“I think you are right, Andy,” agreed Doctor Joe.  “For the reasons you give and for still other reasons I feel very certain strangers to the Bay left the cache.”

“What were they meanin’ by ‘swag,’ Doctor Joe?” asked Andy.  “I never hears that word before.  ’Tis a wonderful strange word.”

“It usually means,” explained Doctor Joe, “something that has been stolen.  The use of that word is one of the reasons that leads me to conclude that it was not written by any of our people of the Bay.  I am quite sure none of them knows what the word means, and like you I doubt if any of them ever heard it.  There seems no doubt, indeed, that strangers to these parts wrote it, and as there are no other strangers in the Bay than the lumbermen, we are safe in concluding that the cairn was built and the note written by someone from the lumber camp at Grampus River.”