Harry Castlemon

“ I did not expect to see you again for two or three weeks."
"We didn't get lost, and we've lots of grub left," replied Arthur. "Where have you started for, if it is a fair question?"
"I am going where the rest of the boys are going, or gone; into the woods to find Matt Coyle's trail and Jake's," answered the guide. "If I can't find but one I'd a little rather have Jake, because there's a bigger reward offered for him. There are a dozen or fifteen men in the woods now, and there'll be as many more by this time to-morrow. ”

“ There must be some sort of system about the search, or it won't amount to any thing. The rest of the boys are trying to catch Matt and all his family, believing that if they can do that they will get the money. Perhaps they will, and perhaps they won't. I wasn't going to do business that way. I intended to find their camp the first thing I did, and hang around it night and day till I got a clew. If Jake knows where the money is, he'll have to go to it every little while to make sure it is safe, won't he? ”

“ Swan has had time to 'surround' the camp, and we must be moving. We must be careful, also, and not get out of supporting distance of one another, for there is no telling what we may run onto in the dark."
It was not without fear and trembling that the boys began their advance upon the squatter's camp. They had given Mr. Swan to understand that they, were not afraid of Matt, and they would have made their words good if it had been daylight and they had been standing on the defensive ”

“ What do you think?"
"If that is what you have decided upon, why, go ahead," replied Arthur. "We shall at least have the satisfaction of knowing that we are busy, even if we don't accomplish any thing."
"We don't want to go near the cove until after dark," the guide went on. "We tried that once, you know, but Matt got wind of our coming and took himself safely off."
A plan of operations having been decided upon, the boys took Mr. Swan's canoe in tow and pulled for the lake with long and lusty strokes. Shortly after twelve o'clock they landed in a little grove to cook their dinner ”

“ We might as well hunt for a needle in a hay-stack as to go wandering about through the timber looking for a couple of grip-sacks, for I have been told that these woods cover almost two thousand square miles of ground. ”