Going some distance he paused again, and listened intently, but nothing beside the deep murmur of the woods reached his ear.
"What can it mean?" he finally asked himself, as a vague alarm crept over him. "We must be much closer together than we were before, and I haven't heard him whistle for the last half-hour."
He began to doubt whether it was best to proceed further or not. It might serve only to mislead in case Elwood was searching for him. Still hearing nothing to indicate the location of his friend, he made the signal himself—a long, screeching whistle, that rang out in the solemn stillness with a penetrating clearness that sent the chills over him from head to foot.
"He must hear that if he is within a mile," was his reflection, as he leaned his head forward and listened for the first approach of the answering sound.
Ten, fifteen, twenty minutes passed away, but nothing was heard, and the poor boy looked around in sore alarm.
"Can it be that Elwood is jesting?" he asked himself. "He would not do so if he knew what I am suffering."
Howard was now in great distress. He could not decide what to do. If he advanced he could feel no assurance of meeting his friend, while a retreat was equally hopeless.
Where was Elwood? Had he wandered off among the hills, tempted by the wild scenery, and had he lost his way? Was he searching for his cousin? Or had he been found by Indians?
The last inquiry had been rising in Howard's mind for a half-hour, but he had resolutely forced it down again, until he could keep it away no longer. He could find no other reason to account for the silence, and failure to answer his call. The whistle which he had given must have spread miles in every direction—so far that Elwood could not have got beyond its range had the course of both been precisely opposite. No; it must——
But, hark! A faint, tremulous whistle comes to his ear. It is far away and sounds among the hills behind, as though it had labored up from some cave or chasm miles distant. Howard held his breath, and as he anticipated, it came again so faintly and distantly that had he been walking he could not have heard it.