Part 14 (1/2)

There was no further alarm, and at dawn the boys came piling out of their tents. The weather seemed to have grown a bit sultry, so Max remarked that perhaps a dip in the water of the Big Sunflower might not feel out of the way.

So they had a happy little time of it, splas.h.i.+ng each other, and carrying on as any five carefree lads might be expected to; until all of them decided they had had enough, when dressing was the next thing on the programme.

Bandy-legs was the first to finish. The fire was burning briskly, and a nice red bed of embers between the side stones invited the attention of the cook of the morning, namely himself.

”Say, where'd you hang that half of a ham, Owen?” he asked, after what seemed a vain search.

”Just where we always kept it,” was the reply; ”suspended from that limb of the oak over--well, did anybody change it around or take it inside the tent?” and Owen looked his surprise, when the others all shook their heads in the negative.

”It's gone!” cried Bandy-legs, looking very unhappy; ”our nice ham's been hooked!”

A rush was made for the oak tree in question.

”There's the twine I hung it up by, dangling from the limb right now,”

declared Owen, pointing.

”But show me the ham, will you?” asked Bandy-legs. ”We can't make a decent breakfast off string that's only got a ham flavor, can we?”

”Why, it must have been full six feet up from the ground,” remarked Steve, for the benefit of Bandy-legs; ”I never thought before a panther could leap _that_ high!”

”Oh, gracious!” began Bandy-legs; and then, seeing the look on Steve's face, he understood that the other was only baiting him for a fall: whereupon he shut his jaws hard together, and determined not to be taken in.

Max, of course, was already looking for signs. It was his opinion that few things could happen without there being evident traces left behind, if only one knew how to find them.

”Here's a track, fellows; and it looks like the same we saw before!” he called out, presently, as he bent over eagerly.

”It sure does,” admitted Owen.

”Right under where our lovely ham hung, too,” wailed Bandy-legs.

”All he had to do was to reach up and grab it,” commented Owen.

Toby did not say anything, but went through a pantomime movement as of a man taking possession of some object dangling there from the limb.

”I wish now we'd taken it in our tent, when Max complained that the ham smell made it unpleasant in his own,” Bandy-legs went on.

”There was a man once who actually locked the door of his stable after his horse was took,” Steve ventured; at which Max laughed.

”Well, it does look like we'd have to go without ham for a while, boys; but after all, it was only a half. Think how bad we'd feel if it was a whole one. And whoever took it must have been pretty hungry in the bargain. He's been living on partridges right along, when he could find any in his snares. The rest of the time he went without a bite, seems like.”

”But, Max, who is he?” asked Steve; at which the other shrugged his shoulders.

”Ask me something easy, boys,” he replied. ”I've never seen him even once, like Herb and his chums did, when they tried to sleep in that queer old cabin. But you see, we've got his footprints right here in the dirt. They ought to tell us something, perhaps.”

”But, Max, footprints can't talk, can they?” demanded Bandy-legs,

”Always, in their own language,” was the ready reply. ”You have to study that a while though, before you can understand what they say.”

”Oh, yes, I'm on to you now, Max,” cried the other, triumphantly; ”you mean that you can tell it was a man by the size of the prints; ain't that it?”