The bag was gone!
But in searching about the tent to see if perchance they had been misplaced, Nate came upon a piece of paper, weighted down by a pebble.
“There’s your thief and the man who knocked out Phil,” he said.
There was nothing on the paper but the crude representation of a bear.
“The Bear,” said Garry disgustedly. “Jean LeBlanc’s nickname. Oh, Nate, what a lot of fools we’ve been. We should have kept a watch for him every minute. Now here’s all our time gone, and our valuable gems. Of course we may get others, but suppose the pockets give out. All gone.”
Phil said nothing, but Garry knew that he saw his visions of going to school with his chums in the fall going a-glimmering.
He strove to console Phil, who remained silent.
Finally Phil began to recover fully from the effects of the blow, and with the recovery his spirits rallied.
“Well, that’s just our hard luck for the present,” he said philosophically. “It means that we’ll have to get out and hustle a bit harder to make up. I know that there are more tourmalines there. I believe we have only just begun on the mine.”
Both Nate and Garry insisted, however, that Phil stay quiet for the rest of the afternoon, despite his protestations that he was all right.