“No, we’re going up the front way,” Tom smiled.  “Llewellyn came down the back way.”

“He’s a peach of a scout, hey?”

“The best ever.”

Hervey had soon a pretty good demonstration of the advantage of using the brain first and the hands and feet afterwards.  And he had a pretty good demonstration of the particular kind of scout that Tom Slade was—­a scout that thinks.

They hit into the road about fifty yards from the boat landing and followed it through a valley to where it ran along the foot of the mountain.

“Are you sure this is the right mountain?” Hervey asked.  “They all look alike when you get close to them.”

“Yop,” said Tom; “what do you think of it?”

“Oh, I’m not particular about mountains,” Hervey said.  “They all look alike to me.”

Following the road, they watched the bordering woods on the mountainside carefully for any sign of a trail.  Several times they clambered up into the thicket supposing some tiny clearing or sparse area to be the beginning of the winding way they sought.

Hervey was thoroughly aroused now and serious.  Once they picked their way up into the woods for perhaps a dozen yards, only to find themselves in a jungle with no sign of trail.  Tom returned down out of these blind alleys, his hands scratched, his clothing torn, and resumed his way along the road doggedly, saying little.  He knew it was somewhere and he was going to find it.

Suddenly he paused by a certain willow tree, looking at it curiously.

“What is it?” Hervey asked excitedly.

“Looks as if a jack-knife had been at work around here, huh?  Somebody’s been making a willow whistle.  Look at this.”

Tom held up a little tube of moist willow bark, at the same time kicking some shavings at his feet.  “Looks as if they passed this point, anyway,” he said.  “Ever make one of those willow whistles?  I’ve made dozens of them for tenderfeet.  If you make them the right way, they make a dickens of a loud noise.”

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE CLIMB

At last they found the trail.  It wound up and away from the road about half a mile farther along than where they had found the shavings.

“I guess no one would have noticed those but you,” Hervey said admiringly; “I guess the detectives would have gone right past them.”

“A lot of little clews are better than one big one,” Tom said as they scrambled up into the dense thicket.  “The initials on the turtle, the new jack-knife, the willow shavings, all fit together.”

“Yes, but it takes Tom Slade to fit them together,” Hervey said.

“Maybe we might be mistaken after all,” Tom answered.  “Anyway, nobody’ll have the laugh on us.  We didn’t talk to reporters.”

Their journey now led up through dense woods, but the trail was clear and easy to follow.  Now and again they caught glimpses of the country below and could see the majestic Hudson winding like a broad silver ribbon away between other mountains.