In the pause which followed, while all strained their ears to listen, the sound of a shrill, distant “Coo-hoo!” the woodsman’s hail, reached them from the forest.
Joe instantly responded with a vehement “Coo-hoo! Coo-hoo-oo!” the first call being short and brisk, the second prolonged into a roar which showed the strength of the guide’s lungs,—a roar that might carry for miles.
Shortly afterwards there was a crashing and tearing amid some undergrowth near the edge of the forest. A man bounded forth from the pitch-black shadows into the clearing, where a little daylight still lingered. As he approached the group, Dol, who was in the background, gave a startled, yearning cry; but it was drowned in a loud burst from his host.
“Why, Cyrus Garst!” exclaimed the latter, peering into the new-comer’s face. “How goes it, man? I never expected to see you here. Surely you haven’t come to grief in the woods? You look scared to death!”
Cyrus—for it was he—grasped the welcoming hand which the owner of this camp extended to him. But his dark eyes did not linger a moment meeting the other’s. They turned hither and thither, flashing in all directions restlessly, like search-lights.
“I’m glad to see you, Doc,” he said. “I didn’t know you were anywhere near. But I’m half distracted just now. A youngster belonging to our camp is missing. I’ve been scouring the forest for hours, and firing signals, hoping he might hear them. But”—
Here Cyrus caught sight of Dol, who with a cry which in its changing inflections was longing, penitent, joyful, was making towards him. The Harvard student strode forward, and gripped the boy by his elbows. In the dusk their eyes were near together; Garst’s were stern, Dol’s blinking and unsteady.
“Adolphus Farrar,” began Cyrus in a voice as if he was making an arrest, “have you been here in this camp, or where have you been, while your brother and I were searching the woods like maniacs? What unheard-of folly possessed you to go off by yourself?”
Dol made a gurgling attempt to answer, but his voice rattled and died away in his throat. His eyes grew decidedly leaky.
“Say, Cyrus!” interrupted the man who had befriended him and now proved his champion, “let the youngster get breath and tell his story from start to finish before you blow him up. I guess he wasn’t much to blame; and if he was, he has suffered for it. He found his way here not quite half an hour ago, so played out from wandering through the forest that he was ready to drop in his tracks. And I tell you he showed his grit too; for he managed to brace up and keep on his feet, though he was as exhausted a kid as ever I saw.”