seemed to surprise Bumpus, for
he looked with elevated eyebrows at each of the others in turn.

"You seem to think I'm joking," he remarked, as if offended by the
levity.

"Well," continued Giraffe, "in the first place you'd possibly find a
heap of trouble discovering a woodchuck's hole in these Maine woods,
especially when you were in a big hurry; and then again, fancy the kind
of woodchuck that had a hole of a size to accommodate _you_, Bumpus
Hawtree!"

The fat boy sighed.

"That's what I get all along the line," he declared. "There ain't no
place in all this world for a feller that's nearly as round as he is
tall. I tell you I'm goin' to find _some_ way of getting rid of all
this superabundance of flesh, if I have to walk it off by taking
tremendous tramps. Some people tell me it c'n be done by going hungry a
week or two at a time; but what's the use of living if you can't eat,
that's what? So I'm in a peck of trouble. Won't somebody tell me what to
do?"

Of course, with such an open invitation, they hastened to accomodate
him; and if poor Bumpus tried even a part of the numerous joking plans
offered for his consideration, he would soon have no need for either
food or energy, since they would, as he declared, be "putting his wooden
overcoat on him."

Finally, however, the boys began to slip back once more into the tents,
all but Giraffe, who was to finish the night with Jim; although there
was hardly another hour now before daylight.

"Just suits me, boys!" declared the tall scout, as he prepared to sit
out his turn as sentry; "you see, I can be thinking over that knotty
problem I've just _got_ to figure out before we leave this part of
the country. And I've an idea that I'm getting mighty warm on that
proposition now. Would sure had it dead to rights, only for clumsy
Bumpus tumbling over me."

But no one paid much attention to what Giraffe was saying; they had by
now grown so accustomed to hearing him always promising great things by
"to-morrow" that it "went in one ear, and came out of the other," Davy
Jones said.

When the morning came, the camp became a scene of activity. While some
of the party were busily engaged cooking a good breakfast--and it needed
a lot to satisfy the healthy appetites of six growing boys, not to
mention two husky guides,--others were examining the tracks that had
been found after the fire.

And it was the universal opinion that two prowlers had indeed started
the fire wit