"Oh, yes we will. I've noticed that things come out all right after a while if you keep trying," said Ted philosophically. "But before we do get out we may have to tramp around a long time, and, maybe we'll find the slackers' camp. I wish we could. I'd like to talk to them and see if I couldn't persuade them——"
"They'd only laugh at you," interrupted Hubert, "and they might get mad and cuff you around. Better let them alone."
"Sometimes I think they might," said Ted, "but when I want to do anything very much and feel afraid of getting hurt I say to myself, 'Never mind; they can't do any more to you than to kill you, and there's another world to come after this,' and I go ahead. Sometimes I go ahead when I'm awfully afraid."
"You can put up a big bluff, then, for you never seem afraid," said Hubert. "Maybe they'll start to hunt for us by morning," he added hopefully, abruptly changing the subject.
"Not if Aunt Clarissa thinks we've gone to Cousin Jim's in town, and it might be two weeks before she found out we weren't there," said Ted, regretting his speech the moment it was uttered.
"Oh, I forgot," groaned Hubert, with starting tears. "We'll never get out of this swamp."
"We'll soon find our way," insisted Ted. "Anyhow, it does no good to fret. It does harm. I've found that it pays to keep hoping. Maybe I'd be different if I'd had a mother to pet me up and make me soft. It's great to have a sweet mother, but if you don't have one you learn a lot of things for yourself."
Hubert made no response and Ted fell silent. Presently the heavy breathing of the younger boy showed that he was asleep, but Ted lay awake a long while. The fire was now practically out and the darkness was intense, but it was a clear night and an occasional star could be seen through the overhanging foliage. After silently reciting the prayer he had been taught to repeat at night, Ted lay close to Hubert, trying to still anxious thought and sleep, but at every sound made in the brush by some little restless forest dweller, bird or beast, at every freshening of the night breeze in the leaves, he would start up and listen, his active imagination peopling the gloom about them with nameless and sometimes fearful shapes.
Anything definite and distinctly recognizable, permitting no vague and disturbing conjecture, was welcome, and so Ted's strained attention somewhat relaxed when an owl alighted in the black-gum, lifted its eerie voice, and with insistent repetition seemed to demand—"Who-who-who-all?"
Finally the boy fell into deep slumber. Some hours later he was awakened by feeling Hubert move and hearing his voice close to his ear: