Each of them experiencing a creepy sort of feeling, they emerged from the grove for a survey of the landscape. Not a clue did it reveal.
Don dropped to the ground in a vain effort to discover footprints, but the surface was so hard, and the moonlight so pale, that he found this a useless effort.
"I'm not usually superstitious," Fred said, finally, "but there are times when, nothing else being available, at least it doesn't do any harm to try something of that sort. I've heard it said that in such circumstances, when a thing has been lost or something like that, a feather tossed in the air will, as it comes to the ground, indicate the direction of the article sought. There is just a chance it might help here."
"But we haven't any feather," Andy complained helplessly.
"Doesn't necessarily have to be a feather," said Don. "Anything of the sort will do."
So saying he turned out the lining of his coat, swiftly tore a piece from it, rolled it into the semblance of a ball and tossed it as high as its light weight would permit into the air. It fluttered there for a moment and then flitted lightly downward, carried this way and that as it rode the air.
But one thing the eager lads grasped at as significant: although they could not discern the slightest movement of the air, the piece of flimsy goods took a distinctly northerly direction and fell at a spot at least three feet in front of where Don had stood when he threw it.
"We'll try it, anyway," he said, leading the way.
They stalked forth without other guide than the fateful falling of the bit of silken cloth. Their path led along the shore where the waves of a calm sea lapped ceaselessly in a crooning lullaby. To the lads, on their unhappy mission, it had a weird, wild, unnerving sound.
They walked rapidly, close together, searching the ground for footprints, and as far ahead as they could see for any indication of the missing man.