Part 13 (2/2)

Several times he awoke during the night and started up, thinking he heard suspicious sounds again, but they proved false alarms.

He was glad to see the first peep of day, and quickly tumbled out to set about his various duties of starting the fire, bringing in water and wood, and later on chopping a supply of fuel sufficient to last through the day.

When Mrs. Peake gave him permission to go Darry hurried off.

Again he carried the gun, thinking he might find a chance to bag a fine fat duck or two, which Mrs. Peake declared she would be glad to have for dinner.

Arriving at the scene of his first triumph of the previous day, he discovered once more that the trap was gone from the bank.

Again he fished for it with the crotched stick, but despite his efforts there was no trap forthcoming.

Finally, filled with a sudden suspicion, he crawled down to examine the stake in the water to which the chain had been secured.

The stake was there all right but no trap rewarded his search.

With his heart beating doubly fast, Darry sped along the path to where he had located his second trap, only to find it also missing.

Now he knew that it could be no accident, but a base plot to upset all his calculations and deprive him of the fruits of his industry.

The thing that angered him most of all was the fact that he must face Mrs. Peake and tell her he had lost the treasures she valued so highly.

He shut his teeth together firmly.

”They won't keep them, not if I know it,” he muttered. ”I'll find out where they hide them. I'll get 'em again, sure as I live!”

The thieves had apparently done their evil work well. Not a single trap did he find in the various places where he had left them.

But one thing he saw that gave him a savage satisfaction, and this was the fact that there were footprints around the last one, in which the muddy water had not yet had time to become clear.

Darry believed from this that those who had rifled his belongings could not have left the scene more than a few minutes.

Perhaps if he were smart he could overtake them and demand rest.i.tution.

It stood to reason that the rascals could not have returned along the same path, for he would have met them.

He bent down to examine the ground and could easily see where the marks of several wet and heavy shoes continued along the trial that followed the creek.

Darry immediately started off on a run.

Hardly five minutes later, as he turned a bend, he had a glimpse of a figure just leaving the path and entering the woods bordering the swamp.

So far as he knew he had not been noticed; but to make sure he crept along under the shelter of neighboring bushes until he reached the place where the moving figure had caught his eye.

Voices now came to his ear, and it was easy enough to follow the three slouching figures that kept pus.h.i.+ng deeper into the swamp.

He even saw his precious traps on their backs, together with several muskrats which Jim himself carried.

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