The voices were masculine and carefully guarded. Creeping closer, Amy suddenly gave a cry of delight and flung herself forward. When Jessie and Nell followed they found her in the act of embracing the astonished Burd, while Fol stood by looking on incredulously.
There were many questions to be asked and answered on both sides, but they hurried the explanations, goaded on by the thought of Darry and his need of them.
The two boys, it seemed, had been hunting ceaselessly for their missing chum since the morning of the first day they had spent in the swamp, when Darry had become separated from them and disappeared as completely as though he had been spirited away by gnomes.
At first they had not been alarmed, thinking that they must soon come upon him, but as the hours passed and still no sign of him, they had become greatly worried. That, said Burd, was where the real search began.
“But we just heard him now!” cried Amy. “He was calling for help, and it sounded as if he were a long distance off.”
Burd nodded and rubbed the stubbly beard which had begun to put in an appearance, the result of two days of neglect.
“That was Darry, all right,” he said. “If he had only kept on shouting we might have had some chance of finding him.”
“Sounded to us as if that last cry was choked off,” said Nell gravely.
“Probably Darry tried to yell again but they wouldn’t let him,” put in Fol.
“Who do you mean by ‘they?’” asked Jessie. Burd looked at her and saw how white her face was beneath the scratches and mud.