“Now, let me get started winding up around the tree.  Tell me when the humbug business is over with,” growled Jerry, beginning to circulate over the same track he had covered on the preceding day at such a speedy pace.

This matter was soon adjusted to the complete satisfaction of Will; though he seemed determined to get results, judging from the several “clicks” that announced his rapid-fire work with the camera.

The boys decided that there was no need of going back to the shack of the muskrat trapper again, while they were just half the distance from their own camp.

Jesse Wilcox directed them, so that there was small chance of their going astray; and, besides, Jerry had been over the ground before on this very morning.

“I wonder whether he’ll bother taking the pelts of those four dogs?” ventured Will, as he and his two friends walked briskly along.

“Hardly.  Dogskins may be valuable, but the buckshot in my gun just about ruined those for any use, all but the yellow fellow.  I had to laugh at Jesse when he saw these tails.  His eyes were like saucers,” declared Jerry, chuckling.

“All right, it was a pretty clever piece of work, and he knew it.  If that big hound had ever laid hold of you—­ugh!  I don’t want to think of it.  Let’s talk about something pleasant—­Bluff’s pump-gun for instance,” remarked Frank.

His eyes met those of Jerry, and the other turned red in the face.

“I don’t see anything pleasant about that subject.  Goodness knows we hear enough of it from him.  What d’ye suppose he wanted to stay in camp for?” he demanded.

“Perhaps to cudgel his brains in order to remember whether he could have taken it with him when we ran out of camp that night; or, perhaps, to give another look around,” suggested Frank, dryly.

“Good luck to him, then,” continued Jerry.  “He ought to employ the great American detective Will here, who discovers things by the print of a foot.  Possibly he could follow up the trail of the thief until it led to the lost Gatling gun.”

“It would have been a good idea if taken at the time.  What’s this plain trail lead to?” asked Frank.

“I think it leads direct from the hemlock camp to where Andy’s crowd holds out,” replied Jerry, who knew considerable about this region.

“Are we far away from the lake, then?”

“It’s some closer than our camp.  This trail has been traveled more or less lately, too.  That proves those fellows have been back and forth.  They’re bound to spend pretty much all their time while up here trying to make life miserable for us.  We turn to the left here, fellows, and go right along this way.”

The other two, after a look along the trail that led to the lake camp, were just starting to follow Jerry when they heard a muffled cry.  Looking hastily around, to their great astonishment no Jerry was in sight!  And in the trail they discovered a gaping hole which was partly covered with a layer of slender sticks, thickly strewn with dead leaves!