“That’s what the little brook whispers to us,” said Doc.
They all laughed except Tom. He was not much on laughing, though Roy could usually reach him.
The woods began abruptly at the foot of the hill and they skirted its edge for a little way holding their lantern to the ground so as to find the trail. But no sign of path revealed itself. Twice they fancied they could see, or sense, as Jeb would have said, an opening into the dense woods and the faintest suggestion of a trail but it petered out in both cases—or perhaps it was imaginary.
“Let’s try what Jeb calls lassooing it,” said Garry.
He retreated through the open field to a lone tree which stood gaunt and spectral in the night like a sentinel on guard before that vast woodland army. Climbing up the tree, he called to Tom:
“Walk along the edge now and hold your lantern low.”
Tom skirted the wood’s edge, swinging his light this way and that as Garry called to him. The idea of trying to discover the trail by taking a distant and elevated view was a good one, but the tree was either too near or too far or the light was too dim, and the four scouts knew not what to do next.
“Climb up a little higher,” called Doc. “They say that when you’re up in an aeroplane you can see all sorts of paths that people below never knew about. I read that in an aviation magazine.”
“The Fly-paper, hey?” ventured Connie. “Look out for rotten branches, Garry.”
Garry wriggled his way up among the small branches, as far as he dared, while Tom moved about at the wood’s edge holding the lantern here and there.