"He must be quite near us, now," replied the other.
"Almost as near," said the first speaker, "as he was when he first thought that he was lost. That was an awful howl he gave, the second one we heard. It would make a fair sample for an Atlantic liner's foghorn."
Both men laughed, and the rich, easy voice of the chief of the party broke in.
"I'm not sorry the boy got a scare," he said; "he's all right, is the boy, but he thinks he knows it all. They all do, at first. I told him not to go thirty yards away, and one way and another he must have gone a mile. It's a good thing he paralleled us, or somebody would have had to go after him."
"I thought sure he'd find us right away when David called back," said the first speaker.
"Yes," replied Field, "I thought so, too. But he didn't, you see. Now let him learn how hard it is to find a party in these swamps and he'll know better next time. You've got the location of his last call, haven't you?"
"Sure!" said one of the men.
"Oh-ho!" thought Roger to himself. "So that's the reason I got no answer to my shouting and my shots. They're just waiting until I get in to guy me some more." He sat down on a root and thought for a few minutes. Then he grinned, and decided to bear the pain in his ankle a few moments longer. Striking off sharply from the trail that had been cut, he wormed his way up and on until he was almost opposite the party, and directly to the left; then, holding a bunch of grass over his mouth to give the muffled sound as of great distance, he gave a howl, putting into it as much anguish as he could manage.
As he expected he heard the sounds of work cease.
"The young idiot's wandered off the trail again," he heard David say to the chief.