"Those rascally French traders have been right here on this spot, brother," remarked Bob, glancing around, and unconsciously half-raising his gun, as though he partly expected to see the vicious faces of Jacques Larue and Henri Lacroix peering at them out of the undergrowth. "And only a day or two ago, just think of that!" exclaimed Sandy, a sudden glow coming into his face. "Oh! what if, after all, we should have the great good luck to meet the robbers some fine day; wouldn't we demand that they return our property, though? And if so much as one single thing belonging to our dear mother were missing, they would have to account for it!" But Bob shook his head. He did not possess the same sanguine spirit as his younger brother, and consequently could not see things in the same light. "It is true they have been here, and lately, too," he remarked, seriously; "but you must not allow yourself to hope too much that there is any chance for our meeting them. We are far below the mouth of the Ohio River now; and the fact of their having been here seems to say that even now these Frenchmen may be on their way down to the town their countrymen have started on the lower waters of the Mississippi, and which they call New Orleans." "But we could follow them!" exclaimed Sandy. "As well look for a needle in a haystack," observed the far-seeing Bob. "Just to think, if only we could have come upon them while they were seated here, eating their supper, and never dreaming that those they had robbed were at their elbows! Wouldn't we have given the wretches a scare, though, Bob?" and Sandy gritted his white teeth savagely, as he stared at the dumb ashes, just as if they might be to blame for the misfortune that had befallen the brothers in arriving too late. "Of course there is one little hope that we will yet run across them," Bob said, as though he, himself, wanted to cling to such a shred. "Perhaps they may be lingering around this part of the country, meaning to rest and hunt, after the long trip they have just made from away up the Ohio. And if they do, Sandy--" "Yes, if they do!" echoed the impulsive lad, shaking his gun impressively, so that further words were unnecessary. "Let us go and show father what we've found," remarked Bob. "Poor mother will feel so sad when she sees this little box, for it held a number of pretty trinkets which she valued more because they were connected with the past, when her children were small, than on account of their worth in a money sense. To think of those big thieves carrying them around in their pockets or medicine bags; it will make father furious." "But how does it come, do you think," Sandy went on, "that, after carrying the box all this distance, they threw it away here?"