"Have you seen or heard anything of Elwood?"
"No-o-o!" replied Tim, his answer rising and falling in a circumflex through a half-dozen notes of the scale.
"Then he is lost!"
"What?" fairly shrieked the Irishman.
"He is lost in the woods."
Howard had little heart to go over the experiences of the afternoon. He simply told his friend that he and Elwood had separated on their return, and he had been unable to find him again.
"What did you separate for?" asked the listener.
"Because I was a fool; but O, Tim, there is no use of regretting what has been done. If Elwood is lost, I shall never leave this place."
After a while Howard became more composed, and they conversed rationally upon the best plan for them to follow. Tim O'Rooney was strenuous in his belief that Elwood had wandered off among the hills, and finding it growing dark, had sought some secure shelter for the night. He was sure that he would give vigorous signs of his whereabouts as soon as day dawned.
There was something in the daring nature of the boy that made it probable that Tim was right. Tempted out of his path by some singular or unexpected sight, he had wandered away until he found it too dark to return, and so had made the best of the matter and camped in some tree, or beneath the ledge of some projecting rock.