With anxious faces the travelers looked at one another. The alarm caused by the discovery that they were on a floating island made them forget their usual caution. Even so seasoned a tourist as Uriah Snodgrass had been at fault, and he did not cease to blame himself for it.
“We’ll do the best we can,” he said. “This is more my fault than any one else's, as I proposed it in such a hurry.”
“Can’t we follow our trail back?” asked Ned.
“We can try, but I fancy we wandered over rather a crooked one.”
This they found to be true. They managed to follow their tracks for some distance but soon lost the trail amid the trees and dense underbrush.
They had come off without breakfast and the pangs of hunger began to make themselves manifest. As for the professor, once the first shock of being lost had passed, he became so much interested in catching some curious bugs that he paid little attention to the boys. However, they kept him in sight, for it would not do to become separated in this dense forest.
“If we’d only told Bob to fire a gun or do something in case we didn’t return soon,” remarked Ned with a sigh. “Poor Bob! I wish we were back where he is.”
“No use wishing,” spoke up Jerry. “We’ve got to keep on. Maybe we’ll hit the trail soon.”
On and on they wandered but only, it seemed, to get the more hopelessly lost. The two boys were much alarmed, but the scientist, his whole mind given over to collecting bugs, was somewhat indifferent.
“Hark! What was that?” cried Ned suddenly.