There was a dead silence for about half a minute, while the boys looked at each other questioningly.
Then Buster raised his hand, and said, earnestly:
“Not guilty, Jack, sure I never even saw the old ham; and ketch me a-playin’ any tricks on the cook, and me that hungry I c’d eat any old thing.”
One by one of the others, even to George, copied Buster’s example, and solemnly denied having tried to annoy the hard-working Josh by purloining the stuff he had laid out for the evening meal.
“Must a mislaid it, that’s what, Josh,” declared Herb, consolingly. “Sometimes my mind plays hob with me that way. Everybody get a move on and look for the grub. We just can’t afford to have our goods floating around every-which-way right in the start. We’ve got to find it, that’s what.”
“Hold on, before you get to running around wild,” interrupted Jack, and somehow when he spoke in that way it seemed as if all the other fellows felt as though Jack had conceived an idea, for he was always quick along those lines.
“I want to ask Josh particularly where it was he laid that stuff out,” continued the other, impressively.
“Why, just like I said, over ther by that clump of brush,” the cook explained, as he pointed in the quarter indicated.
“On that flat stone, perhaps?” continued Jack.
“Now, that was just what I did, Jack,” Josh went on to say, “and when I stepped over just now to get the stuff, why, it wasn’t there. I scratched my head, and tried to remember moving it, but I’d take my affidavy that I never came back to get it till just now, after I got my fire good and ready. That’s the way it was, Jack.”
“Wait a bit,” remarked the other, as he started for the spot in question.
They all watched him curiously. First he bent down, and sniffed of the stone.
“He’s smelling to see if the ham ever rested there, that’s what,” declared Josh.
“And now look at him on his hands and knees, alongside that flat stone, would you?” remarked Buster, wonderingly. “Whatever do you reckon Jack’s got in his head, fellers?”
“He’s getting up now, and we’ll know right soon, which is one comfort,” George observed.
Jack beckoned them over, and as soon as they came running pell-mell, he wagged his head in a mysterious fashion, and pointed down to a spot near his feet.