“And if we don’t get any result?” Bob asked.
“Then we’ll have to come back, after a reasonable time and wait until morning. I haven’t much hope of finding him in the dark, anyhow, for once a person starts to wander he gets more and more confused.”
“Then you think he wandered away?” asked Ned.
“I don’t know what to think,” was Jerry’s answer, and it was a bit despondent. “I wish we had a few hours of daylight.”
“The night can’t last forever,” Bob said softly.
“No, but it’s only half gone—it’s only a bit after twelve,” responded Jerry, looking at his watch in the light of an electric flashlight he had brought from the tent.
The boys prepared for the night search. They started from the fire, pacing off equal distances, and then went forward into the darkness. Every now and then they would look back to see that they had not lost sight of the guiding beacon behind them.
At intervals they called—shouting the professor’s name. Intently they listened for an answer, but none came. Nor was there any response to the shots they fired.
An hour was spent thus fruitlessly, and then they came back to the camp blaze.
“No use, I guess,” Jerry said. “You two didn’t hear anything, did you?”