geur to read the signs after they had
eaten.

After some little time had passed Francois came and stood before them.
His face was almost as inscrutable as that of the Sphinx, or a Cree
Indian. Whatever the character of his finding, it did not show
outwardly.

"Well, how about these men, Francois; they must have been here last
night, you think, don't you?" Ned started to ask him.

"Eet is so, sare. Zey leave zis place just same time we be saying
_bon jour_ to our own camp up ze rivaire."

"How many were they?" was Ned's next question; for Francois could not
tell his story at length, but seemed to wait to have it drawn from him
piece-meal as though he might be a willing witness in the box.

"Thirteen, all men at zat."

"Hunters, trappers, miners, or prospectors?" demanded Ned.

That caused the other to give one of his suggestive shrugs.

"Nozzing like zat right now, sare," he went on to declare, so positively
that it was evident he had found the Indian also agreed with him. "Some
of zat crowd zey wear ze moccasin ze same as Tamasjo here. Ozzers have
boots wiz ze heel. But zey carry no traps along wiz zem, I tell you zat,
sare."

"And if they were miners intending to work in the holdings of the
syndicate they would have carried tools along, picks, shovels and the
like?" remarked Jack.

Francois shook his head in the negative.

"Nozzing like zat, pelieve me, sare," he urged.

"Well, go on and tell us what you think they may be," Ned pursued.

"I zink they pe a pad crowd," answered the guide. "Zis tells ze tale,"
and he held up some greasy cards which he must have gathered in the
bushes behind the rocks near which the dead ashes lay.

Tamasjo also stooped and lifted something that glittered in the
sunlight. When the scouts saw that it was a suspicious looking black
bottle, they could guess as to what the nature of its recent contents
had been. Nevertheless, it was passed around and every fellow had a
chance to take a sniff at it.

"Deadly stuff, sure as you're born!" Jimmy pronounced, making a wry
face.

"Whisky or old rye or something like that," Frank declared; and it spoke
well for those five boys that no one was positively able to identify the
odor, though well knowing its general character as an aid to
drunkenness.

"That seems to settle it, so far as the tough kind of men they were,"
Ned continued; "and now we want to try and find out if they were looking
for us to come down the river; and also,