“Have you noticed that they fell back?”
“I didn’t notice them at all. I took it for granted all the time that they were behind me.”
“How long is it since you saw them last?”
“Well, really, I don’t believe I have looked behind me once since we started.”
“I hope they haven’t lost sight of us. I hope they haven’t lost their way,” said the priest.
The evident anxiety of his tone affected Bart very seriously. His own experience in the woods, as well as the loss of Phil, made him quite ready to believe the worst; and though it puzzled him greatly to conceive how Pat and Solomon could quietly lose them, and go off on a strange course, without a single word, at the same time he began to fear that such must have been the case.
“Well,” said the priest, “we may as well sit down and rest. There’s nothing else to be done. Perhaps they’ll be along presently. I’ll make the guides call for them. They can do it better than we can.”
He then spoke to the guides; and the latter, as soon as they understood the state of the case, began to call for their lost companions. They did this by setting up a series of cries so loud, so shrill, and so sharp, that Bart actually started. He had never in all his life heard such sounds. Pitched upon a high and very peculiar key, they seemed to have a far-penetrating power which would suffice to carry them for an incredible distance.
Again and again the guides uttered these cries, and after each cry they listened; but though they listened long, there came not the slightest response. At length, at a suggestion from the priest, one of them went back along the track which they had traversed. He returned after about half an hour. He came back alone, and reported that he had seen no sign whatever of either of those who were lost.
The priest now looked worried and uneasy. He sat for some time in silence, thinking over this fresh difficulty.