"Yes, I stopped at every house along the road where there was a light burning. Not a person had seen him, although several had seen your boy on the way out. At North Adams I notified the police, but I don't know what they can do."
"I'll go to Mrs. Wilson right away," Pa told him. "This certainly is bad business, but we can't do much until morning. As soon as it is daylight we'll send out a search party. There are only two roads, unless he went up through the Notch, which is not at all probable. It ought not to be a difficult matter to get some trace of him."
"I'll tell you where he is," he went on, after thinking a minute. "He met my John and went back to camp all night with him. They will come home together to-morrow; you see if they don't. John is a pretty safe boy. He's full of pranks, like the others, but he is more cautious. He'll come home all right and bring Bill with him."
Mr. Norton shook his head.
"I sincerely hope so," he said, "but it is not at all probable. Mr. Smith, I never will forgive myself if anything has happened to that boy."
"You are not to blame at all," Pa told him. "Depend upon it, if anything has happened, and we don't know that there has, the boy himself is to blame. He is a fine lad, but is a little reckless and thoughtless at times. Cheer up. It might be a lot worse. Now, if the boys had gone up into the mountains as they talked of doing at first, there would be real cause for worry."
That was why Benny waited for me outside the village the next day, and why Mr. Norton and Mr. and Mrs. Wilson met me at the house and why Skinny and the other boys came in a few minutes afterward.
Mrs. Wilson knew by my face that I had not seen anything of Bill and burst out crying.
"There couldn't have anything happened to him, Mrs. Wilson," I told her, sort of choking up in my throat, myself, because she was feeling so bad. "I mean anything much. Maybe a tramp locked him up somewhere when he was asleep, or some gipsies stole him. I saw some gipsies up above North Adams and they were going west to beat the band. But he'll get away from them. I'll bet on Bill every time."
When I spoke of gipsies to make Mrs. Wilson feel better it seemed to scare her worse than ever.