Page:A Wild-Goose Chase - Balmer - 1915.djvu/209

Rh which is rolled the film of a hand camera. As he himself exposed a roll of film and prepared his camera for another, he had seen scores of such little wooden and copper spools. And here, lying in this hut was one of them, which must have been manufactured in the state of New York within a few years.

Some one taking a snapshot had used up a film roll there, broken the spool, thrown it away after changing films, and gone on.

Geoff stooped again excitedly as he realised that and struggled through the drifted snow for some other object. He found the other half of the spool, which had been broken off; then nothing more rewarded him.

"Who dropped that, doctor?" he demanded, as he fitted the two halves together. "Who could have dropped that? Eric Hedon? Doc, who if not Eric?"

"That certainly was the size and pattern of the spool that fitted our cameras on the Aurora," Koehler said.

"Then Eric Hedon's been here?"

"And that," the doctor looked at the hut,