“It doesn’t seem so,” spoke Marie. “Oh, we must find her! She can’t stay in the woods,” and there was a catch in her voice.
“Now, take it easy, sis,” advised her brother. “We’ll find her all right. All we’ll have to do is to begin a search. She probably went farther than she meant to and it takes longer to come back. Come on, boys, we’ll start on the trail.”
“You must have lanterns!” insisted the Guardian. “It will soon be too dark to see. We have a number of ’em. Girls, light ’em up!”
“Are we going to stay here—alone?” asked Alice.
“You always have,” said her brother.
“But Natalie——”
“Let ’em come along, if they want to,” suggested Jack. “It’s no fun waiting around for news. But we’ll soon find her,” he added. “We’ll each take a different trail—there are three main ones into the woods—Nat must be on one of those. Each fellow can take a girl, and Mrs. Bonnell can be a sort of director of operations.”
The girls paired off with their brothers, and soon the woods bore the appearance of a forest wherein flickered big fireflies, for the lanterns bobbed here and there amid the trees, as do the insects on a June evening.
As the boys and Camp Fire Girls went slowly along they called from time to time, their voices echoing through the fast-darkening woods. But there came no answering cry.
The three main trails into the woods did not diverge greatly, and it was possible for the three searching parties to keep in communication with one another. From time to time one or the other called, asking for any news. But none was forthcoming.