“What have you found now?” asked Jack, who was himself wondering why that new single trail had been made, coming out of the dense bushes at the back of the hut, and showing signs of recent passage, which somehow he could not help connecting with the flash of that lantern on the preceding night.
“The bally old lock don’t hold even a little bit,” announced Josh, as though that circumstance added to his hilarity. “See, I can lift it off with one finger. It’s a fake, that’s what it is, Jack. But while it might fool ordinary people, it can’t a live Yankee. Now what d’ye say to going in?”
Jack laughed as though amused at the reasoning of his chum, and remarked:
“I see you think we wouldn’t be breaking the law of possession if we walked in when the lock was out of gear. That sounds nice, Josh, but many a chicken thief has found that such a plea didn’t save him. But all the same, I’m going to step in and look around a bit.”
“Seems to me it smells fishy around here?” observed Josh, sniffing eagerly.
“Oh! that’s easy enough to explain,” and Jack pointed to several heads of black bass that lay near by. “Somebody has had a fish dinner, for there is the ash bed of a fire. It may have been passing sportsmen from one of the big hotels; then again, perhaps the people who made the trail also cooked a meal or two here!”
Once inside the cabin he looked around. There was virtually nothing to see. The place had not a sign of furniture of any description. Some straw lay on the hard earthen floor, as though it might be made useful in case one wished to pass the night there.
“This is sure the greatest joke ever,” he remarked. “To think of trying to keep trespassers out of this old trap, just like it held all a squatter’s possessions. Jack, what d’ye think the silly donkey meant by that padlock? Did he keep his stuff here once, and locked the door? I’m all in a fog.”
Jack said nothing, only “browsed” around, as he expressed it, kicking the straw aside in places, only to replace it as he had found it, as though not wishing to leave any signs that trespassers had invaded the cabin of the mysterious island.
But all the while he was thinking deeply.
And once, after the laughing and scoffing Josh had stepped outside to look about him again, Jack stooped down and picked some object up off the earthen floor, which he seemed to examine with considerable curiosity before stowing away in one of his many pockets.