The Boy Ranchers of Puget Sound. Bindloss Harold

little trickle of water flowed across it, and that the soil was quaggy in the neighborhood. He concluded that the stranger, who had so mysteriously disappeared, must have crossed the wet place.

      It was some little time before Harry came back and the Chinaman then set out their dinner. Frank had no idea what some of it consisted of and his companion was unable to enlighten him, but it was excellent. When they had finished, the man turned to Harry.

      "One dolla," he said gravely.

      Harry handed it over readily and smiled at Frank when they strolled back into the bush.

      "It wasn't what I'd figured on when I first walked in, but I had to make some excuse," he said. "Just now I'd very much like to know how far it went with him." He paused and looked thoughtful. "I guess it wasn't a very long way. The image is ahead of us by a dollar."

      Frank laughed. "You had some reason for going for that walk?"

      "Oh, yes," replied Harry. "I wanted to make sure of things, and the ground was soft. There were some footprints in it – going from the shack – and they'd been made quite lately by a white man's boot. John sticks to his slipper things in a general way. Anyhow, it was the man we saw who left those tracks."

      "How do you know that?"

      "There were a lot of others about, but they'd been made earlier. The water had got into them, but there was very little in those I was interested in."

      Frank was conscious that this was a point which would probably have escaped his notice, but he had not lived in the bush and learned to use his eyes.

      "It's very curious how the fellow got out of the shack without our seeing him," he said.

      "It looks curious until you begin to think. Now, though I tried to keep my eye on it all the while, the trees kept getting between me and the shack as we made for it, and what I couldn't see you couldn't see either. You were close behind me, which, in one way, was where we were wrong. If we had crept in well apart, the same tree wouldn't have bothered both of us, though if we'd done that it would have doubled the chances of our being seen."

      "A tree isn't such a very big thing," Frank objected.

      "No," said Harry. "The point is that it will shut an object a good deal bigger than itself out of your sight." He stopped a moment and pointed toward a neighboring cedar. "We'll say that one's three feet in diameter, but, as you're standing, it will shut off a good deal more than a track three feet wide through the bush. You want to run a line from your eye to both edges of the trunk and then carry them out behind it. The farther you run them, the farther they get apart, and as you can't see round a corner, everything in the wedge they enclose is shut out from view. Got that into you? It will come in useful when you're trailing a deer."

      It was quite clear to Frank now that it had been explained, but his companion went on.

      "Well," he added, "it wouldn't have taken that fellow more than a few seconds to slip out of the shack and in behind it. Then if he kept it between him and us he'd be hidden until he reached the bush."

      "Yes," said Frank. "It must mean that he saw us, and didn't want us to see him."

      "You're getting quite smart," said Harry with a grin. "I don't know if you noticed it, but you trod on a rotten branch that smashed. He didn't want us to know him again, but I'd pick that fellow anywhere by his back and walk. Now why was he so anxious that we shouldn't see him talking to the Chinaman?"

      It was a suggestive question, but Frank could not answer it, and Harry said nothing further. Reaching the canoe they paddled down the creek until they came abreast of the sloop and saw the provisions lying upon the shingle some little distance from the water, for the tide had ebbed since their arrival. When they had run the canoe in Frank assisted Harry in getting the flour bag on his back, but gave a sudden cry of dismay as a white cloud flew all over him.

      "Hold on!" he cried. "Put it down. It's running out!"

      Harry dropped the bag and drew down his brows as he gazed at the little pile of flour which lay at his feet. Then he suddenly stooped down.

      "The bag seemed a sound one," Frank suggested.

      "Oh, yes," said Harry shortly. "There's only one thing the matter with it. See here," and he laid his finger on a long slit. "Somebody has stuck a knife into it."

      "A mean trick!" Frank broke out wrathfully.

      Harry stood up with a flash in his eyes. "It's rather more than that. It's a hint. Anyway, if you'll get hold of the other end we'll pack the bag down with the cut uppermost."

      In spite of this precaution they spilled a good deal of the flour before they got it on board the sloop, but Harry said no more about the matter, and hoisting sail they slid out of the inlet with a faint breeze abeam of them. They found it fair and the breeze only a little stronger when they had left the woods behind, and Frank sat at the tiller while the sloop glided rapidly through the smooth blue water with no more than a drowsy gurgle beneath her bows. The tide was running down with them now and it was only when he glanced toward the beach that he realized how fast they were going.

      A pleasant salt odor of drying weed was mingled with the scent of the firs. In front of them a wonderful vista of white snow mountains emerged from fleecy cloud, and far beneath the silvery vapor appeared the faint and shadowy blurs of distant hillsides clothed with mighty forest. Overhead the big white sail swayed languidly to and fro, cutting sharply into the blue, and Frank felt that he would like to sail on like this for hours, lounging at the helm, and listening to the water as it slipped along the sides. With a light fair wind he could guide the boat wherever he wished by the slightest touch of the tiller, and it was pleasant to see how steadily he could keep her bowsprit pointing to a low rocky head that rose, a patch of soft blue shadow, against the evening light.