“What can be done?” demanded Elfreda.
“Nothing until morning. I have means of obtaining assistance, which I will employ as soon as it is light enough to see.”
The girls turned away and walked slowly to their tent, and the guide stepped over to the tent occupied by Hippy and Stacy Brown. He was out in a moment and striding towards Elfreda’s quarters.
“Miss Briggs! Mrs. Gray!” he called.
“Yes!” answered the voices of Elfreda and Grace.
“Stacy Brown is not in his tent. There has been a struggle, and the boy has been forcibly removed,” was the startling announcement.
CHAPTER XVII
A TEST OF COURAGE
“Sta—Stacy gone?” exclaimed Elfreda Briggs. “It can’t be possible. He is playing one of his practical jokes on us.”
“Let us look, but don’t disturb Emma and Nora if it can be avoided,” urged Grace.
The two girls, with the guide, repaired to Lieutenant Wingate’s tent, and examined it, using their pocket lamps. It was as Hamilton White had said—there was every evidence that a struggle had taken place there. The fat boy’s hat and his revolver lay where they had been hurled to one side of the tent. His blouse was a yard or so to the rear, and the imprint of his heels where they had been dragged over the ground was plainly visible.