When they entered the camp they seemed to be laboring under some excitement; but Bumpus had warned Smithy not to give their secret away immediately.
"Well, what luck did you have, boys?" asked the stout lad, as one and then another of the six filed past him to the vicinity of the fire.
"We cornered one of the precious pair down at the extreme end of the island," acknowledged Giraffe; "but George gave us the slip somehow. We figured he must have hid in a hemlock top, and after we passed come on up here; and since we ran across his trail not far from camp some of us began to get cold feet for fear that you two might have been surprised and taken prisoner. We're all as glad as hops to see that was a false alarm, Bumpus and Smithy."
"But have you seen anything of George?" asked Thad, who believed there was something decidedly odd about the way the features of the two guards were working, as though they might be doing everything in their power to conceal some secret.
Of course Bumpus had by that time reached the limit of his endurance, especially since Smithy gave a big yell, unable to hold in any further.
"Go and take a look back of the bushes there; that's the answer, boys!" Bumpus remarked, trying to look indifferent, though really trembling all over with the joyful excitement.
There was an immediate rush in the quarter pointed out; and then shouts that might have easily been heard at the lower end of the island.
"Well, what d'ye think of that, now?" Giraffe was saying, in his usual boisterous manner; "if they haven't gone and done it, capturing the long-lost George as nice as you please! Yes, and there's that old engineer's army coat, too; mebbe the judge won't be glad to get that keepsake back again!"
Thad was especially well pleased. Of course this was partly on account of having finally accomplished the task that had been set before him, because he always felt satisfied when he could look back to duty well done.
Besides, he fairly gloried in the fact that the two tenderfeet of the patrol, as they might still be called, had succeeded in covering themselves with honor in having captured the second desperate rascal.
The first thing Thad did was to stand the tramp up, remove his bonds, and make him strip off the blue coat that had once kept the judge's son warm while serving Uncle Sam during our late war with Spain, after which he saw to it that George had his hands bound again.