Mr. Swan, who was the acknowledged leader of the party, at once shouldered his rifle and began following up the trail, the others falling in in single file behind him. They moved so silently that I could not hear a leaf rustle; and I told myself that the surprise and capture of the squatter and his whole shiftless tribe was a foregone conclusion. I afterward learned that Mr. Swan and the guides who were with him thought so too. Before they had gone fifty yards, the former suddenly stopped and whispered to the man next behind him—
“And I smell coffee,” replied the man to whom the words were addressed, and who sniffed the air as if he were trying to locate the camp by the aid of his nose instead of his eyes, “and bacon.”
Shaking his hand warningly at the men behind him, the guide moved forward again with long, noiseless strides. Presently he discovered a thin blue cloud of smoke rising above the bushes close in front of him. He looked at it a moment, and then dashed ahead at the top of his speed, his eager companions following at his heels.
A few hasty steps brought them to the little cleared spot in a thicket of evergreens in which Matt Coyle had made his camp. On one side of it was a lean-to with a roof of boughs, and on the other was the fire, with a battered coffee pot simmering and sputtering beside it. Scattered about over the ground were several slices of half-fried bacon, which had been hurriedly dumped from the pan. A few broken plates and dishes that stood on a log close at hand, bore silent testimony to the fact that the squatter’s wife was just getting ready to lay the table, when news was brought to the camp that Mr. Swan and his party were coming. Under the lean-to were some worthless articles in the way of wearing apparel and bed-clothes, but every thing of value had disappeared. There was nothing like a hammerless shot gun or a Winchester rifle to be found.
“The nest is warm, but where are the birds?” exclaimed Mr. Swan’s employer, who had jumped into the clearing with his coat off and his fists doubled up, all ready to carry out his threat of pounding Matt Coyle before he was sent to jail.
“Didn’t I say that they were sharp?” replied the guide. “The birds have took wing.”