it'd be me?" wailed the victim of the night assault.

"That's all right, Bandy-legs," said Steve, in a tone meant to be
cheering; "you know we've got a good rope along, and if you only choose
to take the trouble to tie yourself to the tent pole every night,
nothin' can't run away with you."

Max had to laugh at the idea; and somehow that seemed to rather make
things look a bit more cheerful. He made Bandy-legs show him just where
he had been lying, and as it was between the other pair, it certainly
seemed singular why any intruder should have picked the short-legged boy
out for attention.

After Max had gone down on all fours, holding the lantern, which Owen
had lighted, and seemed to be trying to discover the trace of feet, he
shook his head.

"Perhaps there might have been tracks," he remarked, "but we've moved
about so much since, that they've just been covered up."

"Tracks of what, the catamount?" asked Bandy-legs, anxiously.

"Perhaps human tracks!" Max went on.

"There! I expected something like that!" burst out Steve. "If there was
anything around here that gripped hold of Bandy-legs, and tried to yank
him out of the tent, I'd be willing to wager a heap that it could be
laid at the door of them measly critters, Ted Shafter and his gang!"

The others hardly knew what to think. But at any rate the fact that Max