It was rather a sorry pair who sat on the rim of the creek and kept watch over a dilapidated rowboat. There had been no fire this morning, and, as a matter of course, no breakfast, and only within the last half-hour had the sun’s warmth begun to drive the chill from their bodies. But at sight of the launch they perked up immediately, their delight tempered by dubious surprise at the discovery that the boat was not only a strange one, but one inhabited by strange men. The discovery of Pud brought relief, but at the next instant Tim saw the uniformed officer and feared that his chum was in the hands of the Law. Indeed, it took a good while for Pud to convince Tim that he wasn’t, and he hadn’t quite succeeded when, with the outcasts aboard and the skiff tied astern, the police launch came in sight of the cabin. ‘You boys better stay here and keep out of sight,’ said the sheriff, jerking his pistol holster around to the front. ‘Oh, they’ve gone,’ said Mr. Kinsey confidently. ‘Door’s wide open, you see. Let the kids come if they want to.’ So they all went, the three men well in advance, and Tim, ever cautious, bringing up the rear. But no hostile demonstrations greeted the party as, leaving the launch well upstream, they advanced through a thicket and at last came to the edge of the small clearing. The cabin was a ramshackle affair of weathered planks and pine slabs, with a roof patched here and there with pieces of tin or squares of tar paper. There was a sagging porch in front, a door and two windows. A third window looked up the stream and a crazy brick-and-clay chimney peered over the roof at them. Mr. Kinsey gave a hail, but there was neither answer nor sign of life, and they went on, crossed the rotting boards of the porch and entered the cabin. It had probably never been commodiously furnished, and perhaps what was left behind was all there ever had been; two bedsteads built against the walls, a rickety table, the remains of a canvas camp-chair, and four home-made stools. The cabin was divided by a wooden partition into two rooms of unequal size, the smaller of which had evidently served as kitchen and dining-room and the larger as sleeping- and living-apartment. There was a two-year-old calendar tacked to a wall and a litter of empty food containers, crusts of bread, fragments of paper, and other rubbish lay about. ‘Flown,’ said Mr. Kinsey dryly.