After a time Osgood and Nelson became separated from the rest of the searchers. They had come to a little opening where the moonlight shone upon a small pile of cord-wood that had been cut and left there during the past winter, and here they stopped and faced each other.
“It’s worse than useless, this searching without lights of any sort save what the moon affords,” said Jack. “There are thousands of places were one could hide from searchers if he chose. It would be better to go through the woods calling to Hooker and assuring him we are friends.”
“I doubt,” returned Ned, “if we’d find him then.”
“What do you suppose has become of him?”
“You can answer that question fully as well as I.”
“Well, then,” said Jack suddenly, “what do you suppose was the cause of all this trouble, anyhow? How was Hooker hurt?”
Osgood’s answer was a shrug. Motioning toward two short stumps which stood nearby, he suggested that they should sit down.
“I want to talk to you, Nelson,” he said, when they were seated. “I’ve got to talk to some one, and I’d rather it would be you than any one else. We’ve never been what might be called real friendly, have we?”
Surprised and wondering at his companion’s words and singular manner, Nelson replied:
“I don’t know that we’ve been exactly chummy, but——”