Followed by the rest, Paul strode over to the tent where a quantity of
the provisions were kept. Entering this, he quickly saw that it was
exactly as he had suggested. Three of the tent pins, which the boys had
pounded down with the camp axe, had been pulled up, and this slack
allowed the intruder to crawl under the now loose canvas.

"I can see the place he shuffled along, and where his toes dug into the
earth," declared Jack, as he bent over.

"We'll try and follow it up presently, and see where he got on his feet
to move off," Paul remarked. "I'd like to find out whether his shoes
make a mark anything like some of those we were looking at up the
shore, Jack."

"Whew!" exclaimed Bobolink, who was again deeply interested in what was
going on, since he had found his precious bugle unharmed.

"Let's look at that paper again," resumed Paul. "The writing was done
with a fountain pen, I should say. That seems to tell that the owner was
no common hobo. And the writing is as clear as the print in our copybooks
at school. The man who did that was a penman, believe me. 'Leave this
island at once!' Just like that, short and crisp. Not a threat about what
will happen if we don't, you see; we're expected to just imagine all
sorts of terrible things, unless we skip out right away. One thing sure,
Jud, your wild man never wrote that note, or even pinned it on our ham,
because the crawler wore shoes."

"That's right," muttered Jud, his face betraying the admiration he felt
for the scout master who knew so well how to patch things together, so