“Oh, soon now,” Mrs. Martin would reply. But as the hours passed and the rescuers did not come back with the missing little boy, Mrs. Martin became more and more worried, though she did not say so.
“Po’ honey lamb!” mused Lucy, as she rocked Trouble to and fro to keep him asleep, for he was restless. “I done wisht he’d come!”
“So do I,” murmured Janet. And then her mother said she had better go to bed and rest.
“But I’ll not sleep,” Janet answered. “I’m going to stay awake all night—or until Teddy comes home.”
However, even worry about her beloved brother could not long keep Janet awake, and soon her eyes were closed, as were Trouble’s. Then Mrs. Martin and Lucy sat up, listening and hoping.
Mr. Martin had been very sure he or the other searchers would soon find Teddy. He thought the boy had merely taken the wrong path through the woods and was wandering about, not far from the bungalow.
But the truth of it was that Teddy had gone farther than even he realized, and much farther than his father thought a small boy could walk in the time he was gone.
“Another thing that’s against us,” said one of the lumbermen, “is that it’s so dark. There’s any number of little hollows and ravines that the boy could be in and we’d miss him even in daylight. And after dark it’s harder yet.”
“I know it is,” said Mr. Martin. “But I think he’ll hear us shouting and answer us. Besides the moon will be up pretty soon, and it won’t be so dark.”
But as for the shouts, Ted did not hear those of the rescuers, and they did not hear his cries as he yelled to drive away the bobcat, if such it was that was trailing him. So the search was kept up.