"I wonder where Letty and Edith are," Mary Lee suddenly remarked. "We haven't heard their voices for a long time."
The two girls called for their friends. But there was no answer.
"Let's hurry," said Ruth beginning to be alarmed.
They hurried out but found no sign of their friends nor any answer to their calls.
"I wonder where they can be," said Mary Lee. "Do you suppose they wandered off on one of these trails? I suppose that's what they have done," she added, answering her own question.
"Let's turn back, Mary Lee," Ruth advised.
They did this at once. Mary Lee felt certain that the two girls could not have gone much further ahead.
They came across one or two of the side trails but there was no sign of footprints. At one of these narrow paths they did see the mark of feet but after cutting into the woods for several hundred yards, they decided it was the point where they had found themselves branching off on their way up.
They did not cease their calls but were unable to get a response.
By this time it was midday and they were far from the camp. They had lost considerable time in zagzaging uncertainly from one point to another in their anxiety to locate their friends.