"In the first place, while I've never met this French trader, still, I've heard so much about him that I feel sure he would never have rested content until he had found our camp, so that he could steal all our horses. No, Roger, this was only a wandering Indian, who happened to run across old Peter, and gobbled him up. Look more closely at the footprint, and you will see that it toes in very much. All Indians walk that way, you know. Yes, some white men do, I admit, but the wearing of moccasins never makes them turn their toes in as Indians do. This was a copper-colored fellow, I'd be willing to stake my reputation on that." "Oh, well," remarked the other, giving up, as he usually did after arguing for a short time with Dick, "it doesn't matter much, anyway. The packhorse is gone, and we'll never see him again. Shall we start on, now, Dick?" "We might as well," replied the leader of the little party, as he climbed into his seat with some difficulty on account of the other burdens loaded on the horse, "and remember that we must keep our eyes on the lookout for some place to hide that package." Roger had insisted on loading the "cast-offs" on his horse, while he walked. It was not going to be for long, he asserted, and he could stand it; and so the other had let him have his way, because he knew that Roger was always happy when he could be doing something for others. They were not long in discovering the very hiding-place they wanted in which to conceal the tent and other things. And, as usual, it was Roger's keen eyes that caught sight of it. "Look over there, Dick. How would that suit us?--that tree with the hump on its trunk, I mean; see the hole just above the ground, which, I take it, is large enough to hold all we want to put in it. Then we can stuff stones in afterwards, and block any animal from spreading himself on our property." "Yes, and after that we must efface all signs of what we've been doing," declared Dick; "because some Indian might happen to cross our trail and take a notion to follow it a space. When he came up to this place he'd notice that we had done something to that tree, and take a look in. But then, we ought to know how to do that, or else we're mighty poor hunters." They had little difficulty in pushing the bundle into the hollow, and then filling the balance of the cavity with stones; finally removing all traces of the fact that any human being had been close to the marked tree.