"After listening for quite a while I thought you would be getting
anxious about my staying so long; and as I couldn't get any real
satisfaction out of the game by hanging around any longer, why, I made
up my mind to clear out. I'd learned several things, anyway, and by
putting our heads together thought we might get at the meat in the
cocoanut."

Of course that was a neat way of admitting that he wanted to talk
matters over with his best chum, on the supposition that "two heads are
better than one." Allan took it that way, for had he not on numberless
occasions done just about the same thing?

"Of course you couldn't tell how many of these men there were, Thad?" he
asked.

"I tried to make a stab at it by noticing the different sound of voices;
and I'm dead sure there must have been three anyhow, p'raps more," the
scout-master told him.

"And I think you've said once or twice that they seemed to be a rough
lot?" the other went on to remark.

"That's my impression, Allan, from a number of things which I won't
bother mentioning now. And there's something more. I told you that
when I had a glimpse of the fellow who spied on our camp I thought he
might be a foreigner, or a half-breed, didn't I?"

"Yes, I remember you did, Thad."