Thinking thus, and yet with an uneasiness that he could hardly understand, Thad kept on, until presently he had broken through the last line of bushes, and stepped out on the little sandy stretch of beach.
Certainly Smithy was not in sight. He turned in both directions, and swept the half circle of brush with an anxious gaze.
Then he called in a low tone, but which might easily have been heard by any one chancing to be hiding behind that fringe of bushes:
"Smithy, hello!"
There was no answer to his summons. The loon laughed again out on the lake, as though mocking his anxiety; a squirrel ran down a tree, and frisked about its base; but the tenderfoot scout seemed to have vanished as utterly as though the earth had opened and swallowed him up.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE TRAIL AMONG THE ROCKS.
Of course the scout-master was given a shock when he realized that Smithy could not be where he had told him to wait until relieved. All sorts of dire things commenced to flash through his head.
"Here, this won't do at all," he presently muttered, starting to get a firm grip on himself; "I've myself alone to depend on, to find out the truth about Smithy, and to do that I must keep my head level. Now, I wonder have I made a mistake about the calibre of Smithy, and could he have wandered off in a careless way?"