There were other parting sallies as Dave and Billy started out in one direction and Phil and Paul another. A last admonition from Way, that regardless of all else, and no matter what was or was not discovered, all four were to meet in camp again at six o'clock, marked the separation of the two searching parties. Yet even these were not the last words spoken. Dave MacLester just could not resist his customary prediction of ill-luck.
"Bet a dollar, right now, nobody finds a thing!" he called loudly. But by this time he and Worth were high up on the crest of the ridge rising above the camp. Phil and Paul were some distance away, heading straight up the valley of the stream below.
Any one chancing to observe the boys as they thus set out would surely have found his curiosity aroused by their accouterment. Each party carried an axe and spade. In the hollow of Phil Way's arm was also a small rifle. Billy Worth carried in addition to his spade a rather formidable looking revolver. Paul Jones carried a noonday lunch for himself and Phil in a small box slung over his shoulder like a knap-sack. Similarly MacLester bore refreshment for himself and his partner for the day.
"Pretty good fun if we don't find anything," Dave found himself admitting almost before the echo of his prediction of failure had died away.
And was he right? The air was just pleasantly cool. The fragrance of the forest's tender new leaves was everywhere. No sound but the distant cawing of crows, and somewhere to the right the chirp of a squirrel broke the silence save for the rustling leaves underfoot. The very hush of the woods was eloquent with sweet sentiments. The dogwood blossoms seen at intervals, and more frequently the wake-robins and adder's tongues, contributed their touch of beauty to enhance such gentle thoughts and feeling.
Buoyant and happy, the one eager with expectation, the other less confident but very willing to find himself a poor prophet, the two lads moved steadily, watchfully forward. Billy and Dave had been assigned to all that part of the forest lying to the north of Camp Golden and between the edge of the hillside above the creek and a long since abandoned logging road which penetrated deep into the woods a quarter of a mile to the east. It would keep them very busy to cover the ground at all thoroughly before night.
"No, this ain't the great woods, though! Oh, I guess it's hardly any woods at all! Very poor woods! Oh, yes! Very poor day, too!" With this and other similar declarations, equally dignified and polished, Paul Jones expressed the delighted state of his mind at about the same time Dave was mentioning his own pleasure to Worth.
Phil Way acquiesced in all of Paul's words, paradoxical as it may appear, for he really denied them. "There never was a grander day; and isn't it a dandy, big woods!" he said. "Just makes a man feel like soaring, though never before so conscious of his littleness and downright insignificance. Why! the creek! these old trees! They were all here and ages old long before we were on earth! They'll be here long after we are gone, too, Paul. But oh! it is fine to be with them—to enjoy them!"
The course Way and Jones were taking was to the north through the valley. Between the east bank of the creek and the foot of the hill lay a strip of woods ranging from one hundred to three hundred yards in width. This was to be the field of their searching as they progressed to the extreme northern limits of the forest. Returning, they would traverse carefully the broad, sloping hillside, broken here and there by precipitous ledges. So would they reach camp again, and the more open valley near it.
"'Three stones piled one on top of another!' It will be along the hill, I'm thinking, that we'll finally find them," observed Paul thoughtfully to himself. Then, impressed by what he considered the importance of this conclusion, he called out the substance of it to Phil, for the two were keeping some distance apart in order that the least possible bit of ground should escape their scrutiny.