“Well, he is around somewhere,” comforted Lewis.
“Sure!” declared Bill. “All hands turn out and hunt.”
The sisters all felt guilty consciences for not having looked after their little brother, all but Helen, who was the only one who had not seen him.
“I was the only one who had time for him and I am the only one he didn’t come to,” she cried. “If I only hadn’t promised Dr. Wright to stay still until he got here! I know I could find Bobby.”
“But, honey, there are lots of hunters and you must do what the doctor told you,” begged Douglas.
“Oh, I’ll mind him all right—that is unless Bobby stays lost too long and then I’ll have to get up and break my word if I lose my immortal soul in the act.”
Staying still while the hue and cry for her dear little brother was going on was about the hardest job Helen Carter ever undertook. She imagined all sorts of terrible things. Maybe gypsies had stolen him. Maybe a rattlesnake had bitten him and he was even now dying from it. Maybe he had fallen down the mountain side and had dashed his brains out on some boulder. Worse than anything he might be lost forever, wandering over the mountains trying to find his way home, crying and calling, scared almost to death, tired and hungry, dying finally of starvation and exposure.
Taking Bill’s advice, all hands turned out to hunt for the lost boy. In five minutes Helen was the only person left in camp, even Miss Elizabeth Somerville and the newly arrived boarders joining in the search. There were many paths leading from camp and up and down these the crowd scattered.
Dear little Bobby! No one thought him a nuisance now. Nan and Gwen made their way to Aunt Mandy’s cabin, thinking perhaps he had gone there in search of Josh. Aunt Mandy came out with kindly words of discouragement and gruesome tales of a child her mother told her of who wandered off and never was found.
“That there Bobby looks like a angel anyhow. Children like him is hard to raise. We uns is been a tellin’ of Gwen and Josh that Bobby is too purty for a boy. He looks to we uns more like a gal angel.” Gwen tried to stop her but the old woman went on until Nan was almost in tears. If she had not been so distressed she would have found this amusing, but with Bobby gone for hours a sense of humor did not help much.