l
grip, must have soon yielded.

Thad looked around him. Would the two desperate characters be coming
back to find the other scout? Did they know that Davy had gone with that
log? Perhaps even at that minute hostile eyes might be upon him!

The very thought caused Thad to take a firmer grip on the stout cudgel
he carried, and resolve that should he be attacked, these rascals would
not have the easy victory they had found with his comrade, Smithy.

But all was quiet and peaceful around him; and by degrees his excited
nerves quieted down. What should he do, now that he knew the worst? Of
course, being such a good swimmer, Thad might easily have stripped, and
made his way over to the mainland, providing the men did not take a
notion to chase after him in the boat. He put the thought aside with
impatience. That would be deserting Smithy, who looked up to him as a
faithful friend and ally; and this Thad would never be guilty of doing.

Should he simply conceal himself somewhere on the island, and wait for
the coming of afternoon, and the expected officers? Suppose, for
instance, Giraffe lost his way while trying to make Rockford, what then
would become of Smithy?

Thad felt that he could never look a scout in the face again if he were
guilty of such small business.

"I'm going to do my best to find Smithy, no matter what happens," he
said to himself, as he shut his teeth hard together, and took a fresh
grip on that comforting cudgel he carried again. "Perhaps they may stick
close to their hiding-place, wherever that is, thinking they've scared
the rest of us nearly to death; and that we'll swim ashore. Here goes,
then, to follow the trail."

He had already discovered where the party had left the sandy stretch,
plunging into the shrubbery, at a point beyond that where he and Smithy
had made use of.

The island, as has been stated before, was so very rocky that Thad, not
being an expert at following a trail under such difficulties, might have
had a hard time of it in places, but for unexpected, but none the less
welcome, assistance.

Here and there, when he came to a small patch of earth, he was surprised
to find plain marks of feet, and several deep furrows, as though some
one had sagged in his walk, and was being half dragged along by those
who had hold of either arm.

This must have been Smithy; and at first Thad was dreadfully worried,
under the belief that his comrade might have been struck on the head,
and i