“Three—four—no, by George, it’s five days. There’s their pile of mail that’s been collecting on the window ledge, and those first letters are five days old.”
The man glanced at a pile of envelopes that lay just inside the window. The upper one was yellow and caught Hugh’s involuntary attention as he stood by the door. The people were dispersing and the excitement evidently was over.
The telegraph envelope was one of those transparent-faced ones, showing the name and address inside. Half unconsciously Hugh read, “John Edmonds, Rudolm, Minnesota.” He turned with a gasp and looked closer. A little of the typewritten line was visible below, “Thanks for letter, will arrive—”
It was his own message that had never been received. His two friends, his only two friends within a thousand miles, were the men who had vanished into the forest.
CHAPTER II
THE BROWN BEAR’S SKIN
It was not until some hours after his dismaying discovery that Hugh was able to get any particulars of what had really happened to John and Dick Edmonds. A dozen people at once tried to tell him of the affair, putting in much comment on what they themselves thought and what they had said to friends at the time, with most confusing results. Although he was so bewildered, he began at least to understand one thing, that Rudolm was not at all the town he had believed it to be. He had considered it lonely, empty of friends, dull and lifeless, and behold, it was quite otherwise! In fifteen minutes—probably the exact length of time required by little Nels Larson to travel the whole length of the street and tell every one of the newcomer who was a friend of the lost Edmonds—words of kindliness and sympathy began to pour in upon him. Long before the small, unofficial towncrier had come to the last house, the first sunburned face had appeared in Linda Ingmarsson’s doorway, and the first heavy Swedish voice had asked for “that boy that vas Edmonds friendt.” The shyness and reserve that usually stood firm between these people and any stranger, melted away at the sight of some one who was in trouble. It was, at last, by the very greatness of their proffered kindness that Hugh began to realize how serious his trouble was.
It was only the last visitor who gave him the actual facts of the affair, Nels Larson, Senior, a little elderly Swede with a wrinkled skin and puckered eyes that were mere pin-pricks of blue. He chanced to be left alone with Hugh and proved so shy and slow of speech that he was able to answer direct questions and make the truth clear without complicating it with opinions of his own. He said that the two Edmonds boys had gone hunting, and expected, so far as any one knew, to be gone but a day, that they had possibly meant to meet an Indian guide in the woods but had left Rudolm alone save for their dog. That one day of their absence had passed, and two, without causing any anxiety, that search had been made on the third day and the fourth and fifth, but without result.
“But does no one know which way they went?” asked Hugh desperately. “Couldn’t they have got to some other town? Couldn’t they just have taken a wrong road? Aren’t people often lost that long and still able to get back?”
The other slowly shook his head.