As they walked steadily along, from time to time Sandy, of course, felt compelled to air his grievances, and he was always sure of a sympathetic auditor in his brother. CHAPTER XXVIII CREEPING UP ON THE QUARRY "ISN'T it a shame that we won't be able to catch up with them before dark comes?" Sandy began. "Well, how do we know that yet?" returned Bob. "Do you really think there's any chance, then?" asked the other, feverishly. "About one in ten," answered Bob. "Something might cause them to stop, and go into camp. Then, as evening came on we would sight their fire, and be able to steal up close to them. Or it might be one of them could twist his ankle in a creeper, and have a tumble that would bruise him so badly he would want to lie over to rest up. There's always a slender chance of such things happening, you know, Sandy." "Oh! to be sure, I understand all that," return the other; "but, altogether it's less than one chance in ten of its happening; I think you might have said twenty, while you were about it. But, see, Pat has halted. I hope he hasn't lost the trail. That would finish us, I'm afraid." Pat turned to the boys, and they could see a quizzical gleam in his blue eyes. Bob felt sure the genial Irish trapper must have heard the complaining words of Sandy, and was in the humor to take them with at least a grain of allowance. He understood the nature of the lad. "Sure, they arre thryin' their level best to pull the wool over the eyes av anny wan that undertakes to follow," Pat was saying. "In what way, Pat?" asked Bob, immediately understanding that the trapper had been reading the signs closely. "By some av the oldest thricks a sly fox iver practised. Av ye look here ye may say where they jumped on this same fallen tree, and walked along the trunk a good ways. Go as ye plaze, I defy yees to diskiver where the sarpints lift that same tree trunk. But bliss ye, 'tis as plain as the nose on me face; and nobody'd have the laste throuble about saing that. Come wid me, now, and be afther lookin' at the way they jumped from the log into the bush beyant. Notice how the same is crushed down in the wan spot. 'Tis there they landed, troth; and from that point we must now take up the thrail afresh." It proved to be just as Pat said. Among the bushes they easily detected the now well-known tracks of the two French trappers. They had undoubtedly run along the tree trunk, and, at the most favorable part, made a flying leap so as to land at some little distance away, and in the midst of a thicket, hoping to thus throw any possible pursuer off the trail. But the trick was so palpable and so ancient, that it is doubtful whether even Sandy himself would have long been held in check.