Having satisfied himself on this point, Oscar retraced his steps to the spot where he first discovered the trail, and, taking it up again, followed it along the bank. The thief had played the same game up here. He had made the entire round of Oscar’s traps, and the boy counted fourteen deadfalls which he was certain had been robbed. “If each of them had a mink in it that rascal has made twenty-eight dollars, not counting the skins he must have taken out of some of the steel traps,” said Oscar, while he wished from the bottom of his heart that he was as large and strong as his guide, so that he could follow the thief and give him a good thrashing for what he had done. “If they were all fishers or martens he has made double that sum. Now who is he, and where is he? That’s the question. This trail looks like the one I saw on the day I shot my first mule-deer. The tracks are wide apart, and in one of them is the print of a patch on the bottom of the moccasin. I noticed that in the other trail. What’s to be done about it? Since he has found my traps, who knows but he has found Thompson’s too?” When this thought passed through Oscar’s mind, he started at his best pace down the stream to see how far the depredations of the thief extended. He did not, however, go all the way to the guide’s trapping grounds, for before he got there he saw enough to indicate that the thief had not been so far down the stream. A short distance below the place from which Oscar’s first trap had been stolen the trail branched off from the brook and led toward the outer edge of the willows, from which the cabin could be distinctly seen. The thief had passed along here for half a mile or more, making frequent halts behind rocks and trees to reconnoitre the camp, and then the trail ran back across the brook and struck off through the open valley toward the hill on the opposite side. After following it long enough to make sure that the thief came from those hills (remember that he had been following the back trail all this while), Oscar turned about and went back to the cabin. Having put his rifle in its place over the door, Oscar sat down to think about it, and to make up his mind what he ought to do under the circumstances; and it was while he was thus engaged that a light step sounded outside the cabin, and the door, which he had left ajar, was pushed a little further open. But Oscar did not know it, for he was wholly wrapped up in his meditations. The first thing that aroused him was the creaking of the wooden hinges. Then he looked up to see that a shaggy, uncombed head, covered with a greasy felt hat, had been thrust into the cabin. Under the hat was a most villainous and repulsive countenance that Oscar recognized at once.