Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay | Page 8

serve very well as a torch, if only one knew how to handle it. Jimmy had taken lessons in this art, and first of all he swung the brand swiftly around his head several times, so as to make it burn more briskly.
"There, that will do, Jimmy," Jack told him; "and now lead us out, you ferocious little monster. Hold the torch so it won't blind us, remember. And if they open fire you be sure to duck, so we won't be shooting you in the back."
"Oh! I'll side-step all right, if only you give me the tip," Jimmy went on to say.
He was already starting out with Francois to show him the way to the spot where the latter had his last glimpse of the supposed spy. All of the scouts were fairly quivering with eagerness; and at the same time a cold feeling began to creep over them at the thought of what they might discover the next minute.
Francois had shot low, and only meant to wound, but then his bullet might have glanced upward, and inflicted a fatal injury.
A dozen and more paces they went. Everyone was excited, and looking this way and that, for who could say what the adventure might not mean? If there was one prowler around there might be a dozen or a score. They remembered what Ned had said concerning the possibility of the reckless plotters composing the mining syndicate gathering together a lawless crowd, and meaning to chase the explorers out of that section of country, should they threaten to discover that a fraud was in the act of being perpetrated.
"Was it about here, Francois, that you saw him vanish?" asked Ned, who had been keeping an eye on the guide, and judged from his actions that they must have arrived close to the suspected spot.
"I am think so, ver' mooch," admitted Francois, eagerly, and then after taking a backward look toward the campfire, he added: "Yes, it ees so, sare. I gif you ze word of a man zat ought to know, zat he was here when I fire ze shot."
"Well, it looks as though you didn't knock him over, Francois," observed Frank, "because there was nobody lying amidst the brush."
Without replying, the French Canadian and the Indian guide fell on their knees, and seemed to be closely examining the ground upon which none of the party had as yet set afoot.
"Tamasjo has found something," observed Teddy quickly, as he saw the Indian lower his head closer to the ground, and evidently examine some object with eagerness.
Ned was down beside him almost instantly.
"It's a plain footprint, all right," he announced as soon as he had been able to take a quick observation.
"That proves Francois did see a skulker then, and wasn't dreaming," Jack was heard to say, as though he may have been entertaining some doubt on the subject up to that moment.
"He scared him off, even if his lead was thrown away," Jimmy ventured, with a slight touch of scorn in his manner, as though he fancied he could have given a better account of himself, had the chance come his way.
"Hold on, don't be in such a rushing big hurry to say he wasted his lead," Ned warned him.
"What's that, Ned; did he hit the sneak after all?" Jack demanded.
"Well, spots of fresh blood don't grow on the bushes up here, even if we do seem to run across lots of queer things," Ned went on to say, as he pointed to where they could all see that it was so.
This fact added to the excitement. If the unknown whom they looked on as some species of spy, had been wounded, it looked like a serious piece of business for the little party of explorers. He must have friends not far away, and after the gantlet of defiance had been thrown down by this shot, these men might lose all restraint and show that they were disposed to act in an ugly way.
It meant that the former sense of security and indifference was a thing of the past. From this time on the scouts must keep constantly on the alert to guard against a sudden surprise. They must learn to watch for danger in every quarter, and not allow themselves to sleep on post.
All this change was caused by the discovery of that one small spot of shed blood. Even the usually talkative Jimmy seemed to have become dumb for the time being, as though realizing the gravity of the situation.
"Do we try to track the fellow, Ned?" asked Teddy.
"I don't think that would be a wise thing to attempt," came the reply. "In the first place we couldn't make any headway without a light; and that would expose the lot of us to his fire, if he