"Frank, it's going to turn out a pretty fair picture, don't you think?" demanded the proud artist, thinking first of all of the success that had crowned his efforts.

"Seems like it, Will," replied the other; "but you've certainly given us a big surprise when you sprung this on the crowd. He must have run across the cord you had connected with the trigger of your flashlight apparatus, and it went off while he was in the act of falling forward."

"His face doesn't show as well as I'd like," continued Will, reflectively; "but even as it stands the chances are we'll find a look of astonishment there when I come to get a print."

"Well," remarked Bluff, "who wouldn't look staggered if, when he was walking along through the woods, all of a sudden he caught his toe in a cord that was stretched across the path, and then had what seemed to be a flash of lightning strike him in the face?"

"I never happened to go through the experience," confessed Frank; "but I'm pretty sure it would give me a fierce jolt."

"But who can the sneaker be, Frank; some darky chicken thief prowling around in hopes of picking up some of our camp duffle?" asked Jerry.

Will turned on him with the scorn an expert photographer always displays when he meets crass ignorance.

"Why, can't you see from the dark shade of his face in the negative, Jerry, that he's a white man?" he demanded. "If it were a negro you'd see his face almost white here. That point is settled without any question."

"All right, Will, I acknowledge the corn," Jerry hastened to say; "but that doesn't bring us any nearer a solution of the mystery. Why should a white man, and one with a white beard at that, be wandering around our camp in the night?"

They looked at Frank. It was an old habit with the three chums. Whenever an unusually knotty point arose that needed attention, and their powers seemed baffled, Frank was always depended on to supply the needed answer.

"So far as I'm concerned, fellows," he told them, "I can think of only one old man around this vicinity, and that happens to be Aaron Dennison."

"Ginger! why didn't I guess him right away?" grumbled Bluff. "Seems as if my wits go wool gathering nearly every time there's some sudden necessity for thinking up an answer. Course it's Aaron, and nobody else!"

"Yes," Jerry went on to say, as though not wholly convinced; "but what under the sun would Aaron be doing here, tell me, and acting suspiciously like a thief in the night?"

"Of course we can't say what tempted him to come out," Frank observed; "we've never met the gentleman face to face, but we have heard that he's a queer one. Besides, if you stop to think, you'll remember a little circumstance that seemed to connect old Aaron with this cabin on the Point many years ago."

"It takes you to piece out these things, Frank," admitted Bluff candidly. "Sure! We figured that out by finding a part of an old envelope in the deserted rat's nest under the floor board."

"Just as like as not," added Jerry, "the old chap owns all the ground along the lake shore, including this cabin; and if that's so he'd have a perfect right to walk out this way whenever he chose, at midnight or noon, as the notion struck him."

"Oh, well," remarked Will with a sigh, "he spoiled my little game with Br'er 'Coon, though I mean to make another try along that line. When this film dries, which may be around noon, I'll strike off a proof, and then we can see what the old hermit looks like."

"One thing goes without saying," chuckled Bluff.

"What might that be?" Jerry asked him.

"Our night visitor didn't wait to find out what had blinded him on the trail, but must have turned and made lickety-split for home."

"Can you blame him?" demanded Will, demurely. "Stop and think how you'd feel if all of a sudden you got such a shock. Bluff, you said you were awake at the time, and heard some sort of a sound, didn't you?"

"Why yes, I'm dead certain I did; and now that we know it was a man who got the scare I reckon he gave a little screech. I thought it was a yelp from some wild animal at the time, but it could have been an exclamation just as well."

They continued to talk about the incident for some little time, but although several suggestions were advanced, in the end they were really no closer to an explanation of the mystery than when they started.

All they knew was that some man, probably Aaron Dennison himself, had been walking along the old trail leading to the cabin from above when his foot caused the concealed trap to be sprung.

He must have turned hastily and retreated after the flash. What he thought the sudden dazzling illumination was caused by, the boys had no means of knowing.

Jerry and Bluff were now getting ready to start on their mission in search of supplies. They both expressed the hope that these could all be procured, once they reached the distant village on the lake shore, many miles off.

It promised to be an interesting trip, for they would pass along a shore neither of them had ever examined at close range before. To those who love outdoor life there is always a novelty about exploration. With new and interesting scenes opening up constantly before the eyes the senses are kept on the alert.

Bluff even had the temerity to suggest that Will loan them his camera for the occasion.

"We might run across some dandy pictures that would be worth while snapping off, you know, Will," he went on to say in a wheedling tone of voice, which Bluff knew so well how to use.

Will, however, shook his head. Usually he was of a most accommodating nature; and on numerous occasions had willingly entrusted his highly valued camera into the keeping of the other boys, who knew how to use it almost as well as did the owner himself.

"I'd rather not, if it's all the same to you, Bluff," he remarked slowly.

"Oh! well, just as you say," declared the other, shrugging his broad shoulders as though it did not matter much after all, and as if taking care of the camera might possibly prove a task rather than a pleasure; "I reckon you're thinking about the chances of my dropping it overboard; or our running into a storm where the little old black box might get soaked and ruined."

"Not so much that, Bluff, as that I want to do some work on the camera," explained Will. "There's a little matter that really needs adjusting, and I told myself I'd fix it this morning sure. Then again I've laid out a scheme for to-day that if it works will call for the use of the camera."

"That's all right, Will," remarked the other, briskly; "it doesn't matter a pin to me, only I thought you mightn't ever be going all the way to that village; and something fine could be run across between here and there."

He dropped the subject and began to talk with Frank about other things. Will looked a little uncomfortable. He disliked being thought selfish, and seemed almost on the point of changing his mind. Then on second thoughts he determined to carry out his original plan.

Frank looked over the old boat that had been patched up as well as the conditions allowed.

"It seems to hold pretty well," he told the two who expected to make use of it during the day. "Of course if the lake gets very rough so that you pitch about considerably, keep on the watch for a sudden inflow of water. The planks will hold, but I'm not so sure about the oakum I pounded into the open seams."

"But you did a good job, Frank," objected Jerry, "and so far none of it seems to have started to loosen."

"That's because we haven't had a chance to subject it to any big strain," Frank explained. "When a boat tosses up and down on the waves it gets a terrible wrench with each jerk. I've known seams to open at a time like that when they were believed to be closed as tight as a clam."

"Oh, well, we mean to follow your advice, Frank, and keep fairly close to the shore," Bluff promised.

"And if there is any trouble both of us are good swimmers, you remember," added Jerry confidently. "All I hope is that we get those precious eggs packed in a way that they won't be scrambled on the journey home. It'd be rough now if after all our hard work we had that happen. I prefer my eggs boiled or fried every time."

None of the four chums as they joked in this fashion dreamed of what Fate had in store for them before the sun went down behind the western horizon. How could they suspect when just then the heavens looked so fair and inviting?

"What's that you've got there with you, Jerry?" asked Bluff, who had been fixing a phantom minnow on a troll, in the expectation of picking up a fish or two while they rowed.

"Oh! a little cold snack in the shape of grub," explained the other, who on all occasions possessed a voracious appetite.

"But don't you remember we planned to be in the village long before noon, and expected to get dinner there?" protested Bluff.

"All right, that strikes me as a good scheme," came the ready reply; "but with my customary caution I'm only insuring against starvation. How do we know but what we'll be shipwrecked half-way there, and find ourselves up against it? For one I don't propose to go hungry when there's a chance to save myself."

Bluff laughed on hearing this explanation.

"Trust you to look out for that, Jerry!" he declared. "And I suppose that in case we do get dinner at the village tavern or a farmhouse, you'll be ready to make way with your snack on the voyage back?"

"I might be influenced by strong pressure," chuckled the other.

"How about the weather, Frank; see any sign of a storm in the offing?" asked Bluff, turning to the leader of the camp.

"Nothing in sight right now," he was told; "the chances are you'll have clear weather going, though there may be some wind behind you. What's going to happen in the afternoon is another matter. I'm not a weather sharp, and so I throw up my hands when you ask me to lift the veil."

All being ready, the boys launched their boat. Bluff was to use the oars for the first shift. When he began to tire he was to call on his chum to change places, unless in the meantime the breeze had freshened enough for them to make use of their sail.

"Good-bye, fellows!" called out Will; "see you later, and take mighty good care of those eggs, remember!"

"Listen to him, would you?" jeered Jerry. "So long as the hen fruit gets here unbroken Will doesn't seem to care what happens to his chums. But that's all right, and we hope to turn up safe and sound before sunset." And under the steady influence of the oars the boat glided on until the voices of the boys died away in the distance.

* * *

Chapter 9 THE FORAGING PARTY

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