The suggestion was no sooner made than it was carried out, and by the light of great, flaring torches the whole party minutely scanned the ground, beginning at the cabin door, and prosecuting their researches in every direction.
After an hour of this work, the Doctor called out from a point near the chute:
"Come here, boys!" and when they came he said:
"Tom went over the bank at this point. See! Here are his tracks in the soft earth, and look! There are the bent and broken bushes by which he let himself down over that cliff. Thank heaven we know now in what direction to look for him as soon as morning comes. It would be useless suicide to attempt to follow his trail now."
"Well, I don't know," said Jack. "But I'm ready for that sort of suicide in behalf of little Tom. Give me your best torch, boys! I'm going to follow the trail down the mountain. You see Tom may have slipped off a cliff somewhere down there and broken his legs or rendered himself helpless in some other way. I'm going to follow him right now, and the rest of you can come after daylight—which isn't more than half an hour off now."
"No!" said the Doctor. "If you think best to follow the trail now, we're going with you, every one of us. But first let us get our guns and some necessaries. If Tom is hurt anywhere down there I must have some appliances with which to dress his wounds. If he has fallen into the hands of the moonshiners we must rescue him, and to that end we must have guns and ammunition. Let us go over his trail by all means, but let us go prepared to do him some good when we find him!"
To this thought there was unanimous assent, and instantly the Doctor and Jim Chenowith hurried back to the house to bring surgical appliances, guns and ammunition. Meantime Jack, who was greatly excited turned to the two boys who remained with him, and said, in a voice so cold and calm that they knew it meant intense emotion—
"Boys! If the moonshiners have caught little Tom and done any harm to him, I am going to drive every moonshiner out of these mountains and into a penitentiary or better still to a gibbet, if I have to give my whole life to it. Will you join me in that? And if I get killed will you promise to go on with the work?"
By that time the others had returned, and they had caught enough of what Jack had said to understand its purport. For answer the Doctor grasped Jack's hand and said with emotion: "To that purpose I pledge my whole life and all of my fortune! If those beasts have dealt foully with little Tom, I'll hire and bring here from Baltimore a hundred desperately courageous men, every one of them armed with the latest magazine rifle there is and commissioned by the revenue chief, and I pledge you my honor that when I am through with the job there will not be a moonshiner left in these mountains! I'll do that, Jack, if I have to hang for it."
The other boys responded with enthusiasm, "We'll be with you in that job, Doctor, without any hiring!"