Dick shook his head despondently.
“No, we’ll have to wait here. This storm is the worst thing that could have happened. Toma may not be able to rejoin us for two or three days.”
“If not longer,” despaired Sandy.
So, imagine their surprise and delight on the following morning to find the young man in question already amongst them. Toma sauntered up with solemn unconcern to the place where Dick and Sandy were endeavoring to build a fire. No apparition could have astonished them more. From their squatting position, they looked up and gasped, then rose in unison, howling like two maniacs. They descended upon the young Indian with a varied assortment of whoops and yells, lifted him up bodily between them and carried him triumphantly away to the tent of Dr. Brady.
“Look!” shouted Sandy. “Look what we’ve found.”
“He’s safe, doctor,” screeched Dick.
The center of so much interest and enthusiasm, one would have thought that Toma himself would have caught some of the infection. Not so. With each passing moment, his face became more and more gloomy, his manner more despondent. He struggled out of Dick’s and Sandy’s embarrassing embrace to a more dignified position on his feet. Soberly he waved them aside.
“You think mebbe I bring back Lamont,” he said bitterly. “It is not so. I no see him.”
With averted eyes and shamed, flushed face, he pushed the two boys unceremoniously to one side and stalked sombrely outside.