“Suppose we don’t get the invitation,” suggested Mike.
“I should like to see him avoid giving it, even if the dinner hour is past, which it is likely to be before we can reach his place.”
Mike’s rugged health and sturdy strength gave him as keen an appetite as that of his companion, and a good meal would be as welcome to him-as to Hoke. Moreover, the situation was such that they could hardly hope to reach the clubhouse before nightfall. He therefore inclined to the plan of calling at the house where they were sure of welcome, but it will be borne in mind that in order to do this, they would have to give over or at least postpone the investigation they had intended to make at the point where Mike had heard voices and seen Uncle Elk the night before, since this lay to the westward of the physician’s camp.
Accordingly the youths turned deeper into the wood, going well beyond sight of the lake, intending to approach their destination by a circuitous course. Not wishing to run against Uncle Elk and the strangers, they made sure of not doing so.
You need not be reminded that one of the easiest things in the world is to lose your way in a wilderness. Mike Murphy seemed peculiarly subject to this misfortune, as has been shown in the previous pages. He kept in the lead, as he had done from the first, his friend quietly following and paying no attention to his own footsteps. By and by it struck Hoke that it was time they reached the doctor’s dwelling. He looked searchingly ahead and around, but saw nothing except the tall, column-like trunks, with considerable undergrowth here and there. Naught that resembled the most primitive dwelling was in sight, nor was there a sign of any person having passed that way.
“Hold on, Mike!” he called abruptly to his friend, and the latter halted and looked back.
“I’m doing that, and what is it ye want of me?”
“Where are we?” asked the puzzled fellow.
“I’m thinking we’re here, as I remarked whin I fell off the house. What do ye think?”
“Of course we are somewhere near Gosling Lake, but I believe we have strayed off and are lost.”