Thus they continued to the farthest point reached before turning back the previous day, David or Doctor Joe now and again firing shots from their rifles.  Then they turned back, making the return just to the westward of the trail made by Doctor Joe, who was on the left flank as they passed up the brook.

“There’s a rock!  There’s a big rock!” shouted David, as the rock where Jamie had begun his search for the cache loomed high through the snow.

Every one ran to the rock, and as they gathered by its side, Andy exclaimed: 

“I knows now what Jamie does!  He were near enough to see the rock!  He were the last one beyond Seth, and he finds un and he goes huntin’ the cache by himself, and it gets dark and he gets lost when the snow comes!”

“That sounds reasonable,” admitted Doctor Joe.  “I shouldn’t be the least surprised if you were right!  It’s more than probable that’s just what happened!  The thing now is to find the direction Jamie probably took from here, and the snow has covered all trace of him.”

“With his trail all covered, there’ll be no trackin’ he.  What’ll we do about un?” asked David. “’Tis hard to think out what way Jamie’d be like to go from here.”

“Let’s try goin’ the way the paper said the cache was,” suggested Andy.  “Maybe Jamie finds un in the tree and climbs the tree and falls and hurts himself.”

“Andy is right,” agreed Doctor Joe.  “It is quite likely he used his copy of the directions to find the cache, and that he went in the direction specified.  We’ll do the same.”

It did not take them long to find the hackmatack tree, and in doing so they stumbled upon the pile of rocks Jamie had built up for a compass rest.  It was covered with snow, but was high enough to be discernible, and a careful clearing of the snow discovered the fact that the stones had been recently piled.

“They may have been piled by the man who made the cache,” suggested Doctor Joe.

“He’d never been doin’ that!” objected David. “’Twould make the tree too easy to find.  I’m thinkin’ ’twere Jamie piles un.”

“What would Jamie be pilin’ the stones for now?” asked Lige sceptically.  “He’d not be takin’ time to go pilin’ up stones that way.”

“He piles un to pilot us when we comes huntin’ he,” suggested David.

They took the next direction, and in due time discovered the round rock, the top of which they likewise cleared of snow that they might make quite certain it was the rock for which they were searching.  Then, in due time, Jamie’s second pile of rocks and finally the birch tree were located.

At the birch tree all clues were lost.  Vainly they circled the surrounding country, firing rifles occasionally until they came to the edge of the marsh.

“We’d never be findin’ he on the mesh, if he gets out there,” suggested David.

“No,” agreed Doctor Joe, “and there’s no reason to suppose that he crossed it to the other side.”