And they were easy to follow—even for a youthful trailer like Chet Havens. A spoor made in the night must be less carefully laid down than a track by daylight. Not much chance to hide footprints while stumbling through the dark. Chet saw how the stranger had come into the thicket, and how he had left. He had not gone near the camp and the place where the sleeping boys lay. Chet was so sure of this that he did not attempt to examine very closely the camp itself. He was sure, however, the marauder had robbed them of the bulk of their meat. The in trace and the out trace led directly up the slope from the brook beside which they were encamped, to the trail they were following to Grub Stake. There, as near as Chet could make out, two horses had stood. He could not discover, the sod was so cut up, whether both, or only one, of the riders had dismounted. He could picture the possible happening, however. In the night the two riders had come along from the east. They were following the trail in the same direction as the boys. Hearing the noise made by the wolves over their dead brother, the strange trailers stopped, and one of them had gone down to investigate. The wolves had been frightened away by the coming of this person. The stranger must have found the camp, but had circled about it—as his footprints showed. Finding the meat, he had helped himself and returned to the trail, then he and his partner had ridden on. “The mystery of it is,” said Chet to his chum, when he returned to the camp to find breakfast started, “why the fellow robbed us of meat and didn’t try to take anything more valuable. I hope you see the value of keeping watch now, Dig?” “Yes, I do!” agreed his chum, with more seriousness than he usually displayed. “I’ll take my medicine for that break last night, old man. If I had kept my watch and waked you, nobody would have sneaked up on our camp and stolen our meat.” “Glad they left us this piece,” Chet said, slicing off steaks with his hunting knife. They seasoned the meat highly and rubbed tallow on both sides. Then they broiled the steaks over the clear fire on one of the “contraptions” which Dig had laughed at his chum for packing. They had coffee; but the pancake flour was gone, and there were only a few “hard-breads.” Hearty boys, however, do not need tempting dishes for breakfast. There was still milk for the coffee, and as Dig said, they fairly “wolfed” the venison steaks. The sun was not an hour high when they abandoned the camping place and started for the trail. Chet was particularly eager to reach the trail, for he wished to follow the trace of the strangers who had robbed them; and when he saw Dig fussing with Stone Fence, he exclaimed: “For pity’s sake! don’t delay us to-day by fooling with that calf, Dig. Do be reasonable.” “What do you think he is—a race horse?” demanded the other boy, in feigned amazement. “Can’t expect him to trot like Maud S., or Yellow-dock. You surprise me!”