That night they found a campfire, or rather the remains of one. The fire was two or three days old and the small greens were trampled down about the place as if quite a party had camped there. This encouraged the boys, and next morning they went on with renewed courage. They kept on going until the morning of the fourth day when the trail brought up abruptly at the side of a small lake. There it ended.
"Well, we seem to be in something of a quandary, Chunky," said Tad.
"It looks that way. What are you going to do?"
"Follow the shore of the lake around until I find the trail again," answered Butler confidently. "They must have landed somewhere. It looks to me as if they had swum their horses over, though I don't see any hoof-marks on the shore. That is what puzzles me."
"Giddap," said Stacy in answer. The boys started to encircle the lake. In order to do so, they were obliged to work back into the forest some distance at one point, traveling more than a mile in what they supposed was a direction parallel to the lake.
At last they came out on the shore again, and Tad gazed in amazement.
"Stacy," he said, "do you see anything peculiar about this body of water?"
"Well," answered the fat boy wisely, "it appears to have shrunk some since we saw it last."
"That is what I think. There is something peculiar about it. It doesn't look to me like the same body of water."
"Oh, yes it is. It's the same old pond."