"I wonder did any of the others happen to see them?" said the scout master. "Here comes the first couple, having finished their task. This way, boys, please; I want to ask if either of you in the course of your wanderings happened to run across Oscar Huggins and Larry Billings? They are the only missing scouts, and as the hour is growing late, I would like to get a point as to where they may be."
Neither of the returned ones, however, could give him the least information, nor was he able to succeed any better when he asked the other couple. Apparently the absent pair must have taken a course entirely different from any of their comrades.
The twilight now began to gather under the shelter of the high mountain, and Mr. Garrabrant looked a bit worried. If the boys had been unfortunate enough as to lose themselves, he knew that they had taken plenty of matches along, and moreover they had been instructed in various devices whereby they might communicate with their comrades, by waving a burning torch, for instance, from some high elevation, certain movements standing for letters in the Morse code, as used by the Signal Corps of the army.
"I think I hear voices up yonder, sir," remarked Elmer, coming up behind the scout master, who was watching the finishing preparations for supper that were going on at the several fires.
"Yes, I thought so myself, and what you say, Elmer, makes me more positive," Mr. Garrabrant observed, a smile taking the place of the grave look on his handsome face. "Yes, there they come yonder, looking as tired as the others. And it may be that I deceive myself, but it strikes me both lads seem to be greatly excited over something or other. I sincerely hope nothing has happened to injure them. I notice no limp in their gait, and each seems to have the full use of both arms. What can have happened to them now?"
"At any rate we'll soon know, sir, for here they are," said Elmer, encouragingly, as Red and Larry limped up to the camp, and with sundry grunts sank upon a log as if to signify how utterly exhausted they might be.
"But tired or not, sir, we're just ready to go out again with you, after we've had some supper," declared Red, to the utter wonderment of the clustering scouts.
"Then I was right in my surmise, and you have run across something out of the common, boys?" remarked Mr. Garrabrant.
"Yes, sir," Red promptly replied, "we certainly have; and many times we felt mad to think we came away to get help instead of staying there, and trying ourselves to investigate, so as to find out what the groans meant we heard coming from that lonely hut!"