.

"Aren't they big?" excitedly asked Joan.

"They're made by a deer!" said Julie, boastfully.

"Are they, Gilly?" asked the girls as the Judge came up.

He pretended to study them carefully, and then said: "I shall have to
wait and compare them with those in the book."

"Maybe it is a reindeer?" suggested Betty, eagerly.

"Mercy no! We don't have reindeers south of the Pole!" declared her
sister.

"Look here, girls! This creature only had two legs--it left only two
hoofmarks, one for each side," cried Judith now.

"Then I know what it was! It was that familiar animal that carries a
pitchfork, smells of sulphur and is known to have hoofs," retorted
Julie, making them all laugh merrily.

"I'm sure I have no desire to trail _him_!" said the Captain, holding up
both hands as if to ward off such a danger. "Let him go to his lair in
peace!"

"All joking aside, girls, this is a queer track--only two feet instead
of four. Let's follow and see where it goes," suggested Mr. Gilroy.

So they trailed the plainly visible tracks, and after a distance, Julie
said: "Whatever it is, it couldn't have traveled so far as this if it
was a cripple. It just _couldn't_ walk on two hind legs all this way."

Mr. Gilroy had to laugh loudly at this, but he said, "No, but don't give
up hope! You may stumble right over the prostrate buck."

But the trail now crossed itself several times, and the scouts wondered
which way the two-legged creature finally went, for all tracks were
obliterated after that criss-cross place in a tiny clearing.

The Corporal was determined to pick it up again somewhere, so she
finally came out to the trail that ran from the camp to the bungalow.
Here she wandered up and down for a short distance, and then spied the
tracks again.

"Oh, I've got him again. He goes right up this trail," so she followed.

The others followed at a distance, and then she shouted, "He prowled
around Gilly's house, too, last night, for I see the hoofmarks here."

Julie would have gone after the tracks to the right "lair," but Hiram
came forward from the barnyard to meet her. He had heard her call to the
others, and offered a solution to the problem.

"I seen them tracks this mornin', too, Miss Julie, and I'm sure that
animal come to the barnyard las' night to feed offen the hay and corn he
could find around there."

"Oh, really! Would one do that?" asked Julie, amazed.

"Sure he would, if he was a deer. An' them tracks ain