face to tell that he had not met with any success in his latest mission.
Even the delightful odor of his freshly caught bass, cooking in the
frying pan over the fire, failed to make Steve look happier. He did hate
to be beaten in anything he undertook.

"Nothing doing, Steve?" questioned Bandy-legs; for there is a saying to
the effect that "babes and fools rush in where brave men hesitate to
tread"; which, however, must not be taken to mean that Bandy-legs
belonged to either class, although he failed to approach a subject with
tact.

"Naw!" snapped Steve, as he hung the case containing the glasses up in
its accustomed place inside the tent.

A few minutes later, finding that no one bothered him for information,
Steve, who was really brimming over with a desire to argue the matter
with his comrades, opened the subject himself.

"Say, now, Max, you don't suppose that it could have been any of them
fellows, do you?" he asked.

Max, who was adjusting the coffee pot nicely on the slender iron bars
that formed what he was accustomed to call his "cooking stove," these
four resting on solid foundation of stones on either side of the hot
little fire, turned his head when Steve addressed him particularly.

"Which way did they seem to go when they left?" he asked, slowly, as
though the answer might have a good deal to do with his opinion.

"Up the river," replied Steve, promptly.