“Matt and his family are always on the look-out for grub, and I should think that the sharp edge would be taken off their appetites after a while,” Arthur remarked. “Did you try to follow his trail?”
“Bless you, no. There ain’t a country in Ameriky that is so well provided with water courses as this Indian Lake country is, and what’s the use of trying to follow the trail of a boat? You might as well think of tracking a bird through the air.”
“What do you suppose Matt intends to do with those guns?” inquired Roy. “Of course he wouldn’t be so foolish as to offer them for sale around here, and they certainly will be of no use to him unless he took a big supply of cartridges at the same time he took the weapons.”
“I’ve got my own idea about that,” replied the guide. “It’s only an idea, mind you, but I have good reason for holding to it. A year ago last spring, Matt got to acting just as he’s acting now, because the hotels wouldn’t send him out with their guests, and me and the rest of the guides tracked him down, and told him that he’d got to clear himself. He allowed he wouldn’t do it, and that he’d make it hot for the fellers that tried to make him go, so we went to work and burned up everything he had, except his clothes and we’pons. Then he had to dig out; but before he went, he sent us word that if he couldn’t do guiding for the hotels none of us should, for the reason that there wouldn’t be nobody to hire us.”
“What did he mean by that?” exclaimed Joe.
“You’re pretty sharp fellows,” said the guide, in reply. “What’s your opinion of his meaning?”
“He doesn’t intend to kill off the guests as fast as they arrive, does he?” said Arthur.
“Probably not,” said Joe. “But he means to steal them poor, and bother them in every way he can, so that they won’t come here to spend their summer vacations.”
“That’s the very idea,” said the guide, approvingly. “That’s what he was up to, and that’s what he is trying to do now; but we ain’t going to let him stay. Now, then,” he added, as he arose to his feet and produced his ancient brier-root, “if one of you will help me while the others tend to things about the camp, we’ll be on our way to the lake in less’n half an hour by Joe’s Waterbury.”