ad seen that
suspicious lurker.

Of course, it was Elmer's intention to examine the tracks left by the
mysterious visitor, and see whether it would be possible for them to
pick up the trail.

He was, of course, taking it for granted that the party must have been
the same man they had been hunting ever since reaching the swamp. So
far as Elmer could say, his footprints resembled those they had seen
with Hen's, although there was really nothing remarkable about them to
distinguish the indentations above all others.

Elmer knew that they took certain chances in figuring this way. After
all this man may have been the farmer who had a stock farm. Some of
his cattle breaking bounds would likely enough wander into the swamp,
and in looking for the strays perhaps he had discovered the smouldering
fire.

As tramps, and possibly bad men as well, sometimes hid in the depths of
swamps, the cautious cattle-raiser may have been crawling up to find
out the truth when that sudden shot frightened him, so that he had run
wildly away.

Well, no matter which of these two solutions to the mystery proved to
be the correct one, Elmer meant to try and come upon the party whose
trail now lay before him. He still favored the original idea, and, in
fact, never bothered mentioning the other speculation to his comrades.

All of them being ready they set out. Elmer and Lil Artha led the van,
for they were recognized as the best equipped scouts in the Wolf Patrol
when it came to a question of trailing. What Lil Artha lacked in
actual experience, he partly made up for in his pertinacity, as well as
his constant practice along these lines.

It soon became evident to them that the fugitive had not thought it
worth while to try and hide his trail at the time he fled from the
camp. That sudden shot must have given him a nervous shock, so that
all he cared about just then was to put as much distance between
himself and those seven khaki-clad boys as possible. The fact that
they carried weapons and would not hesitate to use their firearms must
have convinced him it was a risky thing to hang around that region any
longer.

For half an hour the boys moved on. Sometimes it was at a fair walk,
and then again when the trail grew fainter so that those at the head of
the column were compelled to exercise all of their knowledge in order
to make sure progress, things slackened more or less.

The boys had been warned not to make any unnecessary n