ated,
and Walter and Hal, respecting his reticence, forbore to ask questions.
Walter did venture to ask if they would reach there before dark.

"No," replied Pat. "We'll have to make a camp to-night," and advanced no
further information.

All their duffle and the supplies which Pat was taking in were loaded on
the toboggan, and to this Pat had rigged a sort of harness so that two
walking single file could drag it. This relieved them of packs. Walter
and Hal each carried his rifle on the chance of picking up a rabbit on
the way. The snow-shoes were slung over their backs, Pat explaining
that for a time they would follow a broken out lumber trail and it would
be easier walking without the shoes than on them.

It was when they turned into this trail that the first suspicion of
where they were bound for flashed through Upton's mind, but he held his
peace and settled to the task of doing his share of the pulling. And
this proved to be no easy matter. The trail was but roughly broken out
by the passage of lumber sleds, and it soon became necessary for one to
steady the load to keep it from capsizing. It was slow, toilsome work,
and when at the end of ten miles Pat called a halt for a rest while he
made four cups of hot pea soup by the simple process of melting snow and
crumbling into it a roll of erbswurst the others were ready to declare
that they had come twenty miles.

As he drank his soup and munched a cracker Walter scanned his
surroundings closely. Presently he discovered what he sought, a
partially obliterated blaze on a big tree just beyond and to the right
of where they were squatting.

"I've got you now, old Mr. Foxy!" he cried. "This mysterious camp of
yours is the cabin in Smugglers' Hollow, and we're going to camp
to-night at Little Goose Pond. More than that, your partner is Alec
Smith. Why didn't I guess it before? Own up now, old Crafty!"

Quite unabashed, Pat bestowed a grin on Upton. "Three bull's-eyes," he
commented. "I've been wondering how long it would take you fellows to
catch the scent. Began to think I'd have to rub your noses in it."

"Hurrah!" interrupted Hal, who had been an eager listener. "I never
thought of the Hollow, and yet there is no place I should like to go to
so much as that. Say, Walt, these heads of ours sure are thick. Don't
you remember that Pat told us that first night in New York that Alec was
trapping, and the last he heard of him he was over in the Hollow? Well,
we'd make