Ned sat for a long time on the screened porch with the splendor of the tropical night about him. The jungle came nearly to the walls of the house on all sides, save in front, where a little clearing had been made, and the noises, the creature and vine talk of the thickets, came to his ears like low music.
He listened constantly for the footsteps of the absent boys, but for a long time there was no break in the lilt of the forest. Then—it must have been two o’clock—he heard the quick beat of running feet, and directly Gastong, as Jack had fancifully named his new acquaintance, came spurting into the cleared space.
He stopped running when he reached the middle of the cutaway spot and, seeing Ned on the porch, beckoned to him.
Ned was off the porch in an instant, standing by the exhausted boy, who was now on the ground, supporting his swaying figure with one hand clutching the long grass.
“Have you heard anything of the boys, the two who went away in the car?” asked the other. “Have they come back?”
“No,” replied Ned, filled with a sickening sense of helplessness, “they have not returned. Come inside the screen and speak low, so as not to wake the others.”
Gastong rose slowly to his feet and walked stumblingly to the porch. Once inside he dropped into a chair.
“I have run a long distance,” he said, by way of apology for his weakened condition. “I’m all in.”
“What is it about the boys?” Ned demanded, clutching the other by the arm.