"I"m afraid not," agreed d.i.c.k.
"And so, one of these nights, Mr. Fits will come back, ready to pay us back for our plan to turn him over to the police."
"We took care of him before, didn"t we?" Prescott wanted to know.
"Yes; but Fits was alone, then, and the blizzard kept him from getting away to get help of his own choice kind. Now he can travel as much as he likes. We"ll hear from him again, all right," Dave Darrin wound up.
"If we do, then we"ll find a way to take care of him once more," hinted Prescott.
"Or we might vote that we"ve had a jolly good lot of camping, and go home," suggested Harry.
"What? Let that rascal chase us out of the woods?" flared d.i.c.k. "All who want to go home may start. I"ll stay here as long as I want to, even if I have to camp alone."
"You know pretty well, d.i.c.k, that you won"t have to stay in camp alone,"
offered Dave.
"Of course not," agreed Tom Reade. "We"ll all stick. We"ll hope that Fitsey won"t come back. If he does, then we"ll try to make him sorry that he returned."
From the doorway of the log cabin Hen Dutcher was seen to be peering forth cautiously.
"Say, you fellows," hailed Hen complainingly, "I thought you were never coming back. I thought you had all got scared and ran away."
"Then why didn"t you run away with us?" Dave called out.
"That isn"t my style," proclaimed Dutcher, throwing out his chest. "I"m no baby."
"No; you"re the one hero of the whole outfit," grinned Tom.
"Did they catch old Fitsey?" queried Hen.
"Thanks to you, Hen, they didn"t," Dave answered.
"Me? What did I have to do with the scoundrel getting away?" demanded Dutcher, with an offended air.
"You had to turn your voice loose," Darrin informed him. "That gave Mr.
Fits warning. Then you yelled out again, just as we reached the cabin.
Fits had had time to get on his snowshoes, and then he started. Whew, but snowshoes seem to be as swift as skates would be on the ice."
"Huh! You needn"t blame me," sniffed Hen. "I didn"t have anything to do with the rascal getting away. I"d have gone after him if I had had snowshoes."
The absurdity of this was so apparent that d.i.c.k & Co. burst into a chorus of laughter.
"Huh!" sneered Hen, though his face went very red. "You fellows think you"re the only winds that ever blew."
"You wrong us, Hen," declared Tom solemnly. "Not one of us would lay any claim to "blowing" as much as you do."
One thing the boys had noted, even while carrying on their conversation, and that was that no sounds of shots had come to their ears. The chances were that Mr. Fits had gained so on his pursuers that the latter had given up the chase.
Presently appet.i.te a.s.serted itself, and dinner was prepared and eaten.
It was after the meal that Constable Dock and his deputy came by the door.
"Any thing in there to eat, youngsters?" inquired the constable, looking in through the doorway.
"Plenty, I think. Come in, sir--you and your friend," d.i.c.k made answer.
The boys bustled about, making coffee, broiling steak and reheating the potatoes that had been left over from their own meal. This, with bread and b.u.t.ter, satisfied the hunger of their guests.
In the meantime the constable described how he and his friend had followed the game for some five miles or more.
"It"s my opinion that the scoundrel won"t come back here at all,"
declared the officer.
"We have been afraid that he would, by night, or later," admitted d.i.c.k Prescott.
"No!" retorted the constable with emphasis. "That rascal would figure that I would be lying in wait here for him. So he"ll give the spot a wide berth. He doesn"t want to be arrested."
"You"ll be welcome to use the cook shack, if you want to wait there for him," volunteered d.i.c.k.
"Not a bit of use, my boy. I"d only be wasting my time. You"ve seen your last of that fellow around here. But now, another matter. One of your mates told me, Prescott, that you had uncovered a lot of plunder here in the cabin."
"Yes, sir; we did," d.i.c.k admitted.
"Where is it?" questioned the constable.
d.i.c.k started toward the new hiding place, then halted, turning.
"May I ask, Mr. Dock, why you want to know?"
"Because," replied the constable promptly, "as an officer of the law I want to take that plunder in charge. In turn I"ll hand it over to the Gridley police."
"Oh, all right, sir."
d.i.c.k went to the hiding place, bringing forth all the plunder, including his own watch and his mother"s fan.
"You"ll give us a receipt for these articles, won"t you, Mr. Dock?"
"Certainly, if you want one," nodded the constable. "Just place the stuff on the table, and I"ll list it."
This was done, and Constable Dock wrote out a receipt in due form, which he handed to young Prescott.
"And now I"ll be off and away," said the constable, rising and pulling on a heavy, short hunting coat. "I"ll telephone to the Gridley police, of course. You won"t see the rascal again. Rest easy on that score."
"I hope we won"t see him," muttered Dave, as the boys stood outside the cabin watching the departing officers.
"If we do we"ll get out of it better than Mr. Fits does, anyway," half boasted d.i.c.k.