No one attempted to answer Bandy-legs. They believed they had about
exhausted that subject while sitting around the camp fire on the
previous evening, before starting to go to their blankets; and did not
feel like reopening the question.

"Let's get out of this," suggested Steve, with a shiver.

"Second the motion," declared Toby, speaking straight again.

"Unless Max wants to hang around a little longer, in the hope of
striking a clew that might tell us something about this queer old place,
and the mysterious party that's been sleeping here," Owen followed with.

"Oh, I think I'm done looking around in here," the one mentioned
remarked, with a shade of disappointment in his voice; for Max disliked
to give up any object he had set out to attain.

"We might run across some tracks outside," suggested Steve.

"I meant to give that a try," Max explained; "but somehow I don't feel
as if we'd have any great success there; because, when we came in I
noticed that the ground was kind of poor for showing footprints--rocky,
and covered with dead leaves that have drifted in here right along."

But all the same Max spent some little time hovering around, now down on
his knees and closely examining the ground; again looking up at the
swaying limbs of the overhanging trees, as though knowing that they
could explain the mystery, if only they might speak.