They hurried on until they came out of the woodland and found themselves almost upon the North Birchlands station.
They inquired of the agent at the ticket office whether a small boy had come that way and the man replied in the negative.
Discouraged, they turned to go back the way they had come. They walked on in troubled silence, wondering how they could break this bad news to Dorothy.
“He may have wandered off into the woods and been unable to find his way out,” suggested Tavia, and Ned agreed with her that he might.
“Although Joe and Roger know these woods like a book,” he added. “Roger probably couldn’t get lost in them if he tried.”
“Anyway, we had better look around a bit,” Tavia insisted. “I am dreadfully worried, Nat.”
Nat took her hand, and, like two children, they started into the denser part of the woodland, calling as they went.
“It’s like hunting for a needle in a haystack,” Nat said at last, as they paused to rest. “We might do this all night and still not be any nearer finding Roger.”
“But, anyway, we can try, Nat,” Tavia persisted. “I can’t bear to go back to Doro emptyhanded. She will be crazy.”
So they went on again, calling as they went, until the woods began to grow really dark and even Tavia was almost ready to give up the search for the time being.