Silently they turned their faces in the other direction, feeling all at once chilled and tired and hungry. Ben, leading the way with Billie, began to look serious.
“Billie,” he said in a low voice after a while, “I am afraid I am not worthy the confidence Miss Campbell has placed in me. I am afraid I’ll have to confess that we are lost.”
CHAPTER V.
IN THE BOG.
It was not an unique experience to Billie to be lost. She had once known what it was to be out of sight of every human habitation on a Western plain, and furthermore half dead with hunger and thirst. You will recall how the “Comet” once carried the Motor Maids safely over an old wagon trail through a tropical forest in Florida, and perhaps also you have not forgotten how Billie and Mary Price were lost in the sacred groves of Nikko in Japan. Therefore, Billie was not in the least frightened when Ben confided to her private ear that he had missed the trail.
“We can’t be very much lost,” she answered. “‘Table Top’ is only two miles broad, and we’ll have to reach one side or the other pretty soon.”
“I hope so,” said Ben, “but don’t tell the others yet. If they lose confidence in me, it will only make matters worse. I wasn’t prepared for this bog. I should think Mr. Lupo might have mentioned it.”
“There couldn’t be a trail through a bog anyhow, could there?”