"That sounds good to me, Max," remarked Owen, nodding his head
attentively.

Toby was here heard to make a jumble of sounds, being still too excited
to get his vocal cords in decent working order. He kept pointing at a
nail that had been driven into the tent pole.

Now, strange to say, Steve was really the quickest to understand what
the stammering boy meant, when he became twisted up in this way.

"He says his sweater is gone, the dark-blue one that his guardian, Mr.
Jackson, gave him just a week ago on his birthday. And he left it
hanging there on that old nail," was Steve's explanation of the strange
jumble of sounds Toby was giving forth.

"And that's true every word of it," put in Max at that moment; "for just
as I turned to quit this tent, as we were going off, that same sweater
fell down off the nail. I stopped long enough to hang it up again. So if
it's gone, the thief took a notion he could make good use of it."

Toby remained silent with indignation for a long time; and in his case
this was not a mere figure of speech either, but a grim reality, for he
was tongue-tied.

"Let Max hunt around, and see if there are any tracks," said Owen.

"That's the ticket!" added Bandy-legs; and both the others nodded their
heads in immediate approval of the scheme.

Whenever it came down to a showing of woods lore, Max was the one always