"Oh, Dick, I'm sorry I let Phil go alone. We should have gone together, then there would have been less chance of anything having happened," said Garry brokenly.
"Cheer up, Garry, it's only a little past sundown, perhaps he didn't allow himself enough time to get back here, may have thought the distance was less than it was. You know he has been over this distance only two or three times. We'll give him a little while longer and then set our heads together and see what we can do. I have a lot of confidence in Phil, he manages to pull himself out of his scrapes pretty well most of the time," comforted Dick, although he too feared that Phil had gotten into some scrape that proved too much for him. Dick's fear was that Phil had run afoul of the tramps, for neither he nor Garry knew that LeBlanc was in that vicinity.
Nearly an hour passed, and then Garry sprang to his feet.
"There's no use waiting any longer. Phil would move heaven and earth to keep up to the agreement that was made as to the hour of return. Now we must do something. Get your rifle and lariat and hatchet. Stick the handle of the hatchet inside your trousers so that it will not be so evident, or better yet, we can do it just before we get to town. Then, too, we can coil our riatas over one shoulder, and slip our coats on over them. In that way we won't attract so much attention. The rifles won't appear to be out of place, for it would be only natural that we should take them, seeing we are supposed to be campers who will have to go back through the dark woods to camp. First, before we start, take our knapsacks, there's nothing in them that we will need, and cache them in the branches of a nearby tree. Then we'll leg it to town just as fast as we can."
Before Dick cached the knapsacks, Garry poured all the water in the canteens on the fire, thoroughly extinguishing it. Then in a trice the knapsacks were hidden in a tree, and the pair were ready to start for town.
Garry set a terrific pace at first, until Dick toned him down with:
"Look here, Garry, we don't want to get to town all tuckered out. If we do we will be useless if it comes to a pinch. I'm just as anxious about Phil as you are, but we must conserve our strength. We may need it before the night is over."
"Guess you're right old chap, but I just keep thinking that minutes may mean more right now than hours would some other time." Nevertheless he moderated his pace, and in a trifle under an hour they were in the town of Hobart.
Dick was for making at once to the restaurant to institute inquiries as to whether or not Phil had been there and when he was last seen. Garry by this time had grown calmer and cooler and again assumed the leadership.
"That would be a mighty foolish thing to do. If Phil has gotten into a scrape, there is just as good a chance that it was in that place as out in the street. You know we were warned that it wasn't a regular drawing room by any means. I have an idea, and I think you'll agree with me that it is a good one. We'll hike to the home of the chap we towed home with the broken arm the other day, and see if his granddaughter can give us a tip of any sort as to what sort of a place the restaurant is and what sort of a chap runs it and who hangs out there. Of course there is one great chance that Phil stumbled onto a real clue and followed it, but that is very remote, for I don't believe Phil would disobey an order that had been agreed upon by all as a safety measure."