The sun went down and the coming darkness warned the three boys, vainly searching for Dave MacLester, that they must hurry if they were to find their way to camp. If no success had attended them by daylight, they certainly could hope to do nothing after nightfall, and they turned back toward the lake.
All afternoon Phil, Billy and Paul had tramped the woods. Except for the three tracks in some soft earth, as earlier mentioned, not one certain clue to the direction taken by Dave and his unknown companion had the friends found.
Quite worn out in both body and mind, they took careful note of their bearings, then headed by what they thought a bee-line for Opal Lake. On and on they hurried. The twilight deepened and they kept to a direct course with difficulty. And still they reached neither the lake nor any familiar spot.
"Fine boat we're in if we've gone and got lost," gasped Paul, bringing up the rear. The boys were pushing forward at a slow run, Phil Way in the lead.
"We didn't pay close enough attention to the distance, when we were going the other way; but we'll be out of this in a little while now," came Way's hopeful answer.
"I smell smoke. It might be from our own camp. Chip would be firing up like mad to make a bright blaze," came Billy's voice above the steady patter of feet upon the needle-strewn ground.
"There's some breeze picking up, but not quite from that direction," said Phil, though he paused not a moment.
Paul was first to discover that the course Way was taking could not be right. "I can catch the smell of the swampy ground, at the west end of the lake, in the wind," he said. "We've got to head right against this breeze."
A brief pause, and the lads agreed that Paul was right. And soon the proof was positive. Ten minutes of rapid walking brought the chums to the water, but it was at the east end of the lake, not the north shore, at which they found themselves. Another half mile or less would have taken them entirely beyond the familiar sheet of water, and have led them, hopelessly lost, undoubtedly into the woods to the south. Their course had been steered too far easterly in the beginning.
Glad, indeed, to be so near their camp once more, despite the weight upon their hearts concerning Dave, the boys agreed to continue on around the upper end of the lake on foot rather than return now for the skiff on the more distant shore. So did they come presently to their shack and the bright blaze Chip Slider had burning as a beacon light for them.