“The trouble is,” said Jack, who had learned the particulars of what had been done from Mike Murphy, “Mr. Hall has made no plans beyond what all of you were to do first. You with Mike’s party have gone round the lake, and a part of the distance—the most promising as it seems to me—has been covered twice.”
“Do you think there is any use of our retracing our steps?”
“Not the slightest; wherever Ruth may be found, it will not be in that direction.”
“Where do you advise us to go?”
“Follow Mike’s party; that will be the third time the ground has been traversed.”
“What do you think has become of Sunbeam, as Mike calls her?”
“It seems to me she has strayed only a little way from home, grown weary, sat down to rest and fallen asleep.”
The counsel of Jack Crandall was followed. Thus the major part of the searchers were soon pushing through the woods in the neighborhood of Doctor Spellman’s home. It will be recalled that he, his wife and Scout Master Hall, set about this task upon the first breaking up of the Boy Scouts to prosecute their separate lines of work. Although they parted company directly after leaving the others, the three kept in touch with one another, and after a time husband and wife joined, with Mr. Hall just far enough away to be invisible.
The Scout Master left it to the parents of Ruth to call to her. They did this at brief intervals, and they did not listen more intently for the reply which came not than did he. When an hour had been used without result, the three came together in a small open space lighted by the moon.
The mother, although distressed beyond description, was become more composed.