He did not wait for an order, but sprang into the path that led behind the tree, and hurried along it, with a half dozen curious fellows at his heels.
It was soon evident that the girl had not stuck to the path, which would have taken her back toward the village, but had plunged into the woods, which in places was thick with undergrowth.
“It’s no use to follow her,” said Hammond, joining the searchers. “It is likely she will make a short cut for home, where her father probably is, and where she can have the wound dressed. That is, if she was really wounded, which I doubt, from her actions. Perhaps the arrow only struck in her clothing, and frightened her. When I picked it up and examined the point, I could see no blood on it.”
The archery contest was virtually ended, with Merriwell and the Lake Lily Club the winners, and no one was in a hurry to go back to the shooting ground. But it was universally conceded in a little while that no good could be done by trying to follow one who knew the wilderness paths as well as any deer that roamed them, for it would be impossible to overtake her as long as she did not want to be overtaken.
While the boys talked and speculated, Nell Thornton was hastening on through the laurel scrub, unmindful of the stabbing pain in her shoulder; and, at the same time, Bruce Browning, wrapped in a heavy coat and with a handkerchief knotted about his shivering neck, was advancing slowly and languidly up the path in the direction of the archery grounds.
“I’m afraid that confounded chill is coming back,” Bruce grumbled, pushing a vine out of his way, “and I suppose I was a fool for leaving the cottage. I wish I had taken that other path, even if it is farther around. The bushes are thick enough here to make a squirrel sick, trying to worm through them. Hello! What does that mean?”
Nell Thornton, who had struck into this path from the woods, came into view, and was seen to reel and lurch like a boat in a gale.
Browning stopped and stared.
Then he saw her reach out to steady herself by a sapling, and sink down in an unconscious heap.
“By Jove! she’s fainted!” he muttered, stirred by the sight. “She must be ill or hurt! I wonder who she is?”