Instantly the entire party sprang out of bed and each began to slip into his clothes.
"We must build a bonfire," said the Doctor, as a first suggestion. "You see, Tom may have lost his way, and it isn't easy to find one's way about in these mountains of a dark night. If we build a bonfire, he will be able to locate the camp. If anything worse has happened to the boy, why we will—"
The Doctor did not complete his sentence, but the other boys understood, and with one voice they answered in boy vernacular: "You bet we will!"
CHAPTER XIII
A Night of Searching
The bonfire was quickly built and stout, willing hands piled upon it the brush left over from their chopping till the blaze of it rose thirty feet into the air, illuminating the entire mountain side.
So far as anybody could plan there was nothing else to be done while the night lasted, except scour the woodlands and thickets round about, hallooing now and then; but nothing that the boys could do produced any result. Hour after hour passed and still Tom did not appear.
"It would be useless," said Jack, "to go off into the darkness to look for him. We simply must wait for daylight, particularly as we don't know what direction he took. Possibly by daylight we may track him. But unfortunately there is no snow on the ground."
"Unfortunately there will be snow on the ground before daylight comes," said the Doctor, who had conceived a great affection for little Tom, "and it will obliterate whatever tracks the boy may have made. All the indications are for snow, and indeed it is beginning to snow now. I tell you, boys, we must make some torches and study the ground by their light. Perhaps we may find Tom's tracks before the snow covers them."