“And even if he didn’t actually say the words.” went on Giraffe, “his manner stood for it all right—‘you just wait, and I’m going to have my chance before long.’ And fellers, it’s my opinion Bumpus just got tired of waiting for his chance to come to him, so he went out stalkin’ after it.”
“No use trying to pick up his trail to-night, is there?” asked Step Hen.
Thad shook his head.
“Not in the least,” he said. “We’ll have to wait until morning, and hope he may show up yet. As I said before, we’ll try and keep a fire going all night, so as to show him a beacon, if by good luck he keeps on turning to the left, as lost people nearly always do, and comes back this way.”
They sat up rather late, talking. And although the conversation might be of things that had happened in the past, it was easy to see what the chief thought in every one of those boys’ minds must be; for never did a rabbit or a squirrel rustle the near-by underbrush that there did not come a look of eager expectancy upon seven faces, that quickly died out again with repeated disappointments.
There is an old saying to the effect that “you never miss the water till the well runs dry.” And these seven scouts of the Silver Fox Patrol did not fully realize what a universal favorite Bumpus Hawtree had become until he was missing from camp.
Many times that night when either Allan or Thad, being light sleepers, took it upon themselves to crawl out from their blanket in the tent they occupied, to fix the smouldering fire, they would sit there a bit, and listen to see if by good luck they might hear a distant “halloo.”
But only the usual noises of the night greeted them. Around lay the mysterious big timber, and somewhere in the unknown depths of this wide stretch of woods bordering the Rocky Mountain foothills their comrade was camping in solitude, doubtless a prey to lively fears.
So morning found them.
Breakfast was quickly eaten. There was no “cutting up,” or boyish pranks shown on this morning. Every one seemed serious, gloomy, oppressed with doubts, and a vague sense of coming trouble.