CHAPTER XVII

CLEARING SKIES


Paul made no reply to this remark of his chum.

Having studied the charms of outdoor life always, he knew that he would
be placing his friends under a heavy handicap if he ever attempted to
compete with them in woodlore.

True, just as he said, Wallace was somewhat of an unknown quantity; for
he, too, seemed to have a deep love for everything connected with life in
the forest, and never tired of reading books that told of pioneers and
their ways.

The scout leader immediately started some of the boys along another tack.
They were given a chance to find a lost trail, to detect all manner of
signs such as would be apt to tell how long previously some one had
passed that way; and to discover where the tracks came out of the creek,
upon the bed of which the unknown had walked quite some distance.

Of course, Paul had made the trail himself in the morning, running out
here on his wheel so as to prepare the ground. And when they all failed
to find out just how the party had left the creek, since the marked
tracks did not seem to appear anywhere along the banks, he pointed to
where the limb of a tree hung down over the water.