was smooth and bare there, and
Sappy forgot his limp and helped to carry ashes and sand from the
fire-hole. Then planting his broad feet down in the dust, with many
snickers, he left some very interesting tracks.

"I call that a bare track" said Sam.

"Go ahead and draw it," giggled Sappy

"Why not?" and Yan got out his book.

"Bet you can't make it life-size," and Sam glanced from the little
note-book to the vast imprint.

After it was drawn, Sam said, "Guess I'll peel off and show you a
human track." He soon gave an impression of his foot for the artist,
and later Yan added his own; the three were wholly different.

"Seems to me it would be about right, if you had the ways the toes
pointed and the distance apart to show how long the legs wuz."

Again Sam had given Yan a good idea. From that time he noted these two
points and made his records much better.

"Air you fellers roostin' here now?" said Sappy in surprise, as he
noted the bed as well as the pots and pans.

"Yep."

"Well, I wanter, too. If I kin git hol' o' Maw 'thout Paw, it'll be
O.K."

"You let on we don't want you and Paw'll let you come. Tell him
Ole Man Raften ordered you off the place an' he'll fetch you here
himself."

"I guess there's room enough in that bed fur three," remarked the
Third War Chief.

"Well, I guess there ain't," said Woodpecker. "Not when the third one
won first prize for being the dirtiest boy in school. You can get
stuff an' make your own bed, across there on the other side the fire."

"Don't know how."

"We'll show you, only you'll have to go home for blankets an' grub."

The boys soon cut a Fir-bough bed, but Guy put off going home for the
blankets as long as he could. He knew and they suspected that there
was no chance of his rejoining them again that day. So after sundown
he replaced his foot-rags and limped down the trail homeward, saying,
"I'll be back in a few minutes," and the boys knew perfectly well that
he would not.

The evening meal was over; they had sat around wondering if the night
would repeat its terrors. An Owl "Hoo-hoo-ed" in the trees. There was
a pleasing romance in the sound. The boys kept up the fire till about
ten, then retired, determined that they would not be scared this time.
They were barely off to sleep when the most awful outcry arose in the
near woods, like "a Wolf with a sore throat," then the yells of a
human being in distress. Again the boys sat up in fright. There was a
s