“Oh, you boys!” exclaimed the Guardian. “You are always thinking of clues and trails! Be reasonable.”
“Well, Nat had some good cause for going off, I’ll say that much,” declared Phil, and Blake nodded in assent.
“Go get those other fellows,” suggested Jack. “I’ll bail out a boat, one of ours has sprung a leak.”
“Why not take the launch?” asked Blake.
“Something’s the matter with the carburetor again,” replied Jack. “They might get stuck out in the middle of the lake.”
“That’s a peach of a boat!” murmured Blake. “If we come up here again next year we’ll have our own. This one is out of order half the time. The fellow who hired it to us ought to give us a rebate.”
“If we don’t find that missing canoe of his he’ll take so much of our money that we’ll have to walk home,” added Phil.
“Well, we’ll have a good search in the morning,” said Jack. “Now then, let’s get busy after Natalie.”
While the girls stood about, well-nigh distracted, and not knowing what to do, save to talk in shivery whispers, and to speculate on what might have happened to their Camp Fire chum, Phil hurried off to where the other boys had their tent. He was soon heard returning with them.
They readily agreed to join in the search, and some of them prepared to set off in one of the larger rowboats, with Phil, while the others got more lanterns and prepared for another tramp through the woods.