"Don't get excited," smiled the newcomer. "It will all come out right in the wash. We'll get them all, in time."
"I have heard it before somewhere," he mused. "This man is not an outlaw in the common acceptance of the word. He is probably the man having this very delectable enterprise in charge."
Then he remembered the scene on the street in Montreal, and the story which had been told him by the campfire up the St. Lawrence came back to his mind.
This man might be the Lawyer Martin who had been referred to by the farmer. The lawyer, it had been stated, was apt in private theatricals and of pleasing personality. This man was disguised so far as clothing went, and his conversation showed that he was tactful and understood how to keep on the right side of the men with whom he mingled.
The more the boy studied over the problem, the more certain he became that the man who was handling the unlawful enterprise, designing to keep the Fontenelles out of their rights stood before him.
Presently Lawyer Martin, if it was he, turned a pair of keen yet half-humorous eyes in the direction of the boy.
"Did you have a pleasant trip up the river?" he asked.
"Fine!" replied Clay. "Plenty of good sport."
"If you had asked my advice," the other said, "you would have proceeded straight up the lakes from Ogdensburg. It would have been safer."
"If safety was the only thing we figured on when we started away," the boy answered, "we wouldn't have started at all. We would have remained at home and gone to bed."
"You seem to be quite a bright boy," the other suggested. "Why don't you give up the map turned over to you by mistake, and go on about your business? That's what you ought to do."
"Why don't you get another map?" asked Clay.
"Because," was the reply, "the old Indian who made the one you have was drowned on the night he turned it over to you."
"I'll tell you what I'll do," Clay said, "you come on board the _Rambler_ with me and we'll give the map to Captain Joe, and then we'll all go together and deliver it to Fontenelle. It seems to belong to him."
"I think you'll change your mind," replied the other.
After a short whispered conversation with Steve and Ben, the man left the cavern. Clay would have given a good deal for some knowledge as to his objective point. He believed that the outlaws had a base of supplies other than the cavern on the peninsula, and he was wondering if the boys on the _Rambler_ would be able to discover it.