“I see it is.  Certain, are you, that it hung there when we went to bed?”

“One of the last things I did was to slip around here and nip it to make sure it was as tender as those jolly birds we had for supper.  There wasn’t any wind to whip it around and twist the cord till it broke.  Yet where is it now?” and he shook his head dolefully, looked at his friend as if confident Maurice could in some way explain the mystery.

Maurice went at things in a far different way from his chum; instead of calling it an unfathomable mystery he stepped forward and took hold of the piece of cord that still hung from the nail.

Thad saw him closely examine it.

“Could a fox swim aboard and climb on top of the cabin to reach over and down to where that duck was hanging, and cut the cord with his sharp teeth, and then sling the bird over his shoulder to swim back again to—­” he began.

“Stop!” exclaimed Maurice.  “You’re on the wrong track.  It wasn’t a fox!”

“’Coon, ’possum, wildcat, whatever could it have been?”

“A two-legged thief,” announced Maurice, quietly.

“Shucks! you don’t say so?  How’d he ever get here, and if he wanted to steal why didn’t he run off with something more valuable than a poor little teal?”

“H’m, will you tell me what he could have taken, with everything nailed down, the cabin door locked and even the little dinky fastened with a chain and lock.  This cord was cut with a knife and never twisted apart.  Do you know that once in the night I awoke and thought I heard something knock against the side of the boat—­ that must have been his skiff when he came aboard, and I thought it was only a floating log.  Well, our teal is gone; but think of the lot over in the marsh yonder.  The fellow must have been mighty hungry, and with no way of shooting a dinner.  Why, while you cook breakfast I’m going to see what I can do with taking toll of our neighbors who kept serenading us all night.”

Which he did.

Once in the marsh with the little boat and his gun, Maurice found that it would be the easiest thing in the world to knock over a dozen ducks if he wanted them, and indeed he held his fire from the first because he believed he could get several victims with the one shot.

Four times he pulled the trigger inside of ten minutes, and when Thad looked out to see if he were in sight, so as to wave to him that breakfast was ready, the lone hunter was just in the act of throwing a couple of plump birds upon the deck.

“Two—­wow, that’s good!” cried Cookey, in his usual ornate style, darting out to pick the game up.

“Four!” exclaimed Maurice, suiting the action to the word, and landing a second brace beside the first.

As Thad stooped down to feel of these he received a shock, for a third couple struck him on the head.

“Six?” he ejaculated, almost afraid to believe his eyes.