wn and sticky on the leaves caught the
scout's eye. Some one had crawled stealthily through here. Or else
dragged himself through. Pee-wee shuddered at this thought. He examined
the trampled channel more carefully. And from this examination he was
satisfied of one fact which made him uneasy, apprehensive.

The weight which had crushed the bush down had been a prone, dead
weight. At intervals of perhaps three or four feet were gathered wounded
strands of the tall grass, as if some groping hand had reached ahead,
gathering and pulling on them. Pulling a helpless weight. Pee-wee knew
this for he saw with the eyes of a scout.

CHAPTER XXXIV

THE TRAIL'S END

This trampled channel petered out in a comparatively bare area across
which was more brush. Almost hidden in this was a tumbled-down shack,
hardly bigger than a closet, in which boys who had been wont to dive
from the old bridge had donned their bathing suits. It had been thrown
together as a storage place for fishing tackle and crab nets and these
latter, rotten and gray with age still hung in the dank, musty place.

Pee-wee paused a moment, irresolute, nervous. He had a strange feeling,
a feeling of apprehension which amounted to a certainty. And as he
paused two charred bits of timber from the old bridge, still held
together by a rusty brace, creaked, and the creaking seemed loud in the
stillness of desolation.

A rusty can, the discarded receptacle of bait, lay at his feet, and
in his hesitation and transient fear, he kicked it, and followed it,
kicking it again. Then, banishing such cracked-up excuses for delay he
put aside his fears and went around the tiny shelter to where the rotted
door hung loose upon one broken hinge.

Within lay a human figure. The hair was wet and matted and prickly
leaves were stuck in it. The face was streaked with blood, the clothes
were torn. One of the legs lay in a very unnatural attitude. The eyes
were wide open and staring with a glassy look at some rough fishing rods
which lay across the rafters above. One of the arms was outstretched
and the hand lay open as if its owner were saying, "Here I am, you see."
There was something very appalling about that dumb attitude of speech
and welcome when the voice and the eyes could not speak. For he had
"got dead," this poor troubled creature "got dead" after committing one
hideous crime to hide another.

The people in the nearest house along the now dese