ciation with one or the other of his companions.
Besides, they might need him in some way or other; because there were
_some_ things he could do, if he wasn't cut out for an agile fellow
because of his heft.

"No, we'd better all keep together, I think?" Thad answered, much to his
relief. "You see, we're in a strange situation, and even if we put in
half an hour looking this place over, what does it matter? Time isn't so
valuable as all that. The others will wait for us, and take things easy.
Allan has promised to show them some Indian picture writing this
afternoon, and I know he'll amuse the bunch so they won't miss us."

"Now, I'd be sorry to miss that same myself," remarked Bob; "because
he's got me worked up to top notch fever about it, and I wanted to try
and read the sign he left behind him. I've sure heard a heap about that
picture writing, and what fun scouts have trying to make out what it all
means. But there don't seem to be anything out of the way on this same
island, suh. A sure enough pretty place, and would make the finest
camp-site you ever saw."

"Perhaps we may move over here to-morrow," said Thad. "I've several
reasons for thinking that way."

"One of which is that you'd like to get rid of that bear," chuckled Bob.

"Don't be too sure of that," answered the other; "we might want to fetch
him over here with us. He did us one good turn when he frightened that
Brose Griffin crowd away, and who knows but what he might repeat?"

They came out on the other side of the island, and had seen no sign of
any sort of human habitation. On the way back again to the other shore
Thad took a different route, so that he believed they would thus cover
the better part of the territory that went to make up the lake island.

"Sure we're heading right, Thad?" asked Bob, presently.

"Oh! my goodness I hope we don't get lost!" exclaimed Bumpus, in alarm.

"It's all right," replied Thad, with not a trace of uneasiness in his
voice; "we are pretty nearly across now; and unless I've made a bungle
of it, we ought to come out right on that same little sandy stretch
where we landed."

"I can hear the waves beating against the rocks, and they sound right
loud now," remarked Bumpus.

"That must be because the wind has been getting stronger all the time
we've been gone; and even now you notice the trees begin to thin out.
Tell me, isn't that our sandy stretch right ahead there, and am I a good
woodsman or not?"

"You br