“Huh! I try ter be. But them boys are such smart rascals! They kin shoot an’ foller a trail, an’ all that. They are free-handed, too.” “There we get right back to Tony’s stomach again,” snarled the other man. “You make me sick!” “Well, it don’t make me sick to pick the bones of a fat bird that somebody else has shot,” quoth Tony Traddles. “And you ain’t so much!” he added, with some peevishness. “You said if you got them papers from the kid you’d make a hunk of money, and I should have some of it. And then you go and lose ’em—if you lost ’em.” “Oh, I lost ’em all right,” returned Steve, “or I’d not be knocking around this country with a couple of boys tagging me.” “And you think you can find ’em?” queried Tony. “I believe I can. And I want to shake these kids so as to do it. When I slipped into the river as we swam the horses from that island, I flung my coat ashore to keep it dry. Remember?” “Yes.” “That’s when I lost the deeds. The packet fell out of my pocket right then. I was in too much of a hurry getting that crazy pony ashore to think of anything else.” “Well! it’s a long way back,” remarked Tony. “And I insist on getting meat first. You can’t shoot game with your pistol, and this old gun of mine ain’t much good. I told you so in the first place.” “If we wait for these boys to shoot something, we’ll have to kill another day,” grumbled Steve. “We can only slip out and leave ’em in the dark.” “Then make it to-morrow night,” said Tony, with decision, and he rolled over and knocked the heel out of his pipe into the fire. Chet stole away from the encampment of the two rascals within a few minutes. Tony had pillowed his head on his arm and gone to sleep. It was Steve’s first watch. The boy had heard enough of importance to show him that his suspicions were upheld. The man really had lost the deeds which he had stolen. He had not discovered the loss, in all probability, until he was made prisoner and searched by the two boys. At once his mind had gone back to his adventure on the shore of the river, now mentioned to Tony Traddles. Chet was confident that he knew what river was meant. It was the shallow stream in which the men had striven to hide their trail just after they had robbed Chet and Dig. The former believed the island spoken of must be below the ford at which he and his chum last crossed. “I could turn back and find that place—pretty nearly—in a day and a half,” thought Chet. “That’s where the fellows aimed for when they started out the morning after we captured them. “Our sticking to their trail made them turn this way. Steve is going to try to throw us off and go back to find the papers. _Why not beat him to it?_”