"Seems to me it's getting lighter," announced Wallace, presently.
"Mebbe our eyes are used to it, that's what," Bobolink remarked.
"Mine are closing up right fast, I warn you, fellers," said William; "and before long it's going to be a case of the blind leading the blind. That branch took me across the face. Hey! ain't that the same old shout?"
"Sounds like it; but much nearer," returned Paul, with a vein of uncertainty in his voice, as if he might be commencing to doubt whether they were doing the right thing in paying no attention to the calls.
"Oh! I guess I know what it means," remarked Jack; "I've been trying to make it out all along. That's sure a different voice. Some of Ted's crowd have got separated, and they're just trying to get together again. You've heard quail calling, after being flushed and scattered. How, Paul?"
"Perhaps you've struck it, Jack. Anyway, we are on the road here, and had better push straight along to the pond first."
"Right enough," uttered Bobolink, as he broke through a cordon of brush, and jumped out on the highway, though it might be only an apology for a road after all, being scantily used; "and after that experience it's going to be something big that drags me into the woods again."
The little group stood there for a minute to recover their wind, which had been more or less exhausted in the last desperate push through the dark woods.
"Ready to move on, fellows?" demanded Paul, who had apparently not changed his mind, and was more than ever bent on covering the last lap lying between themselves and the pond.
Jack and Wallace fell in on either side, and the march was begun. Since the other pair did not wish to be left behind, they were forced to accompany themselves to the movements of the trio.