When I got to his shanty I saw it was locked up and he wasn’t anywhere around. I guess he went down the bay crabbing. Anyway, I ran as fast as I could to Marshtown landing to see if he had gone yet, but there wasn’t any sign of his boat there. Maybe you think I wasn’t disappointed. Anyway, I began looking around like a scout is supposed to do, to see if there were any signs to show me whether he’d be back soon, because maybe he only went up to the Club landing for gasoline. But there weren’t any signs and he didn’t show up.
Now, if I hadn’t been a scout I would have gone home and played tennis or followed the shore up to the Club landing and waited for the troop to come and go to work on the houseboat. But instead of that, I kept looking around and pretty soon what do you think I saw? I saw a footprint. Some Robinson Crusoe, hey?
It was a funny kind of a footprint. It wasn’t Jake’s, I knew that, because he always wore fisherman’s boots. It was in the soft earth near the landing and I could see it plain. I guess maybe it was made by a good shoe, because it was pointed, but it was all worn out, that was one sure thing, because there was a place that was made by a stocking or a bare foot, where there wasn’t any sole at all.
Maybe you don’t know much about deduction, but that’s one thing scouts learn about, and I tried to make out what it meant, but it had me guessing. Because the shoe was pointed and had the remains of a rubber heel—I could tell that by the big screw holes. And that meant good shoes. And I thought it was funny anybody who could wear good shoes would let them wear out like that.
Anyway, it was none of my business, only there was one mighty funny thing about that footprint. There was an Indian’s head stamped right in the mud. It wasn’t very plain, but I could see it was an Indian’s head all right. It was something like the Indian’s head on a cent.
Oh, boy, I was all up in the air then, because I didn’t understand how that could be there. Maybe you’ll say that it was stamped there to show what make of shoes they were, but that’s where you’re wrong, because most of the sole was all worn away and the mark would be worn away, too. Somebody must have cut it there lately, that was one sure thing, and I couldn’t understand why anybody would want to cut that on an old worn-out shoe.