They scoured the whole treacherous ground for fifty yards or more in every direction, but no sign of the unfortunate boy’s body could they discover. They lashed together the two oars from the boat, making a length of perhaps twenty feet, and probed the pool but found nothing.
“I’m going to dive into that,” said Garry.
“I don’t think you’d better, my boy,” said Mr. Ellsworth.
But Garry had already dived and came up dripping with mud and slime.
“I couldn’t get to the bottom,” said he; “there isn’t any bottom.”
Tom Slade who, as usual, had pursued his own way, called to the others, “There’s a kind of a trail here—a pearl necklace,[2] I should think. It runs through this swamp and up around the side there. See?”
Roy and Mr. Ellsworth, who had come close to him, saw what he meant, though it is doubtful if even those good scouts would have recognized it as a trail.
“See?” said Tom, “you can get to the top without that climb. This runs up around where it isn’t so steep.”
Sure enough, there was a sort of zigzag trail, becoming plainer as it wound its way up, by which one might ascend by a longer though safer route. It followed a deep cleft in the rocks and led, as they surmised, to the easier slope on the landward side of the mountain.
“Why didn’t he take that path, do you suppose?” said the scoutmaster.