squirrel or chipmunk. Once they heard the distant bark of a fox and this was the only sound that broke the stillness.
"It's rather a lonely place," said Sam, after a silence lasting several minutes. "I must say I shouldn't like to meet Arnold Baxter here alone."
"For all we know he may be watching us from behind some tree."
Several times they got down to examine the path. Footprints could be seen quite plainly, but neither of the boys was expert enough at trailing to tell whether these prints had been made recently or not.
"It would take an Indian scout to make sure of these footmarks," said Tom. "They are beyond me."
"Let us go a bit further," returned his brother. "Then if we don't see anything, we may as well go back to the lake."
"Hark!"
They listened intently and at a distance heard a crashing in the brushwood.
"That sounded as if somebody had jumped across the brook, Tom!"
"Just what I should say, Sam. Come on!"
Again they went forward, a distance of thirty or forty yards. At this point the path seemed to dwindle down to little or nothing.
