“That’s good advice, Will.  If you hope to recover your property, better keep a padlock on your lips just now.  Besides, you need all your wind,” remarked Frank.

They ran on.

The trail was crooked, but kept drawing nearer the lake all the while.

“Just a few minutes more,” panted Andy at length.

And when less than that time had passed they could catch glimpses of the cabin in which he and his crowd had taken up their quarters, after being forestalled by the outdoor chums in the race for the hemlock camp.

Andy said nothing, but the manner in which he put his fingers on his lips as he turned his head, was indicative of silence.

He led them forward in such a way that the cabin stood between them and the spot where several boys seemed to have clustered, interested in something.

When they looked around the corner of the hut they counted five in the bunch.  It was Pet Peters, a tall, raw-boned lad, who was swinging the camera to and fro in triumph, while he held up the waterproof package in which Will kept the rolls of films that had been exposed, awaiting the time when he could develop the same.

“Say, but won’t them sissies be hoppin’ mad w’en they sees it gone?” he was saying, with a grin; “an’ we can keep it as long as we wanter.”

“What’s he got in the black bag, Pet?” demanded one of the others.

“Don’t know, but we’ll soon find out,” grunted the leader of the group, looking around for a place to lay the camera down while he applied himself to the task of opening the tied-up package.

“I bet it’s films he’s used; I know, because I got a bull’s-eye camera to home,” exclaimed another chap, pressing forward eagerly.

“Who was it tumbled into the old mine shaft?” asked Pet, as he dug at the knot with which the cord was fastened.

“Don’t know for sure, but I kinder think it must a-been Jerry Wallington.  I seen that Frank and Will along with Andy,” replied a third, quickly.

“Glad of it.  Andy says as how he’s under obligations to Jerry, but fur me I don’t take any stock in that sorter thing.  He jest couldn’t let a feller lie there and die under that tree.  It sarves Andy right because he wanted to cover up the old shaft again afore any purty boy fell down in it and skinned his nose.  Say, how d’ye ’spose they ever found that ladder agin after we hid it?”

“’Course Andy got it for ’em.  He oughter left the kid in the hole all night.  Hope he’s bunged up good and hard by the tumble,” came from another.

“Looky here, Pet, ye know what ye’re doin’, I ’spect?” asked the one who had but a minute before owned to having a camera at home.

“Tryin’ to open this pesky little package, all right,” answered the other.

“But if it has them films inside ye’ll ruin the hull bunch if ye lets daylight in on ’em.  Undo the rolls that is wrapped each in black paper, and the picters is gone just as quick as that,” and he snapped his fingers.