They were entering an area of underbrush, where the trail ceased or was completely obscured, so that there wasn’t even a ghost of it, as Doc remarked. But the sound of the water guided them now and they worked their way through such a dense maze of jungle as they had never expected to encounter outside the tropics.
Tom, going ahead, tore the tangled growth away, or parted it enough to squeeze through, the others following and carrying the stretcher and first-aid case with greatest difficulty.
“How long is this surging thoroughfare, I wonder,” asked Garry.
“Don’t know,” said Tom. “I don’t seem to have my bearings at all.”
After a little while they emerged, scratched and dishevelled, at the brook which tumbled over its pebbly bed in its devious path downward.
“We’re pretty high up, do you know that?” Doc observed.
“I don’t see as there’s much use hunting for marked trees,” Tom said. “I must have come another way before. I don’t know where we’re at. What d’you say we all shout together?”
This they did and the sound of their upraised voices reverberated in the dense woods and shocked the still night, but no answering sound could be heard save only the rippling of the brook.
“We stand about as much chance as a snowball in a blast furnace,” said Garry.
“The thing to do,” said Tom, ignoring him, “is to follow this brook, somebody on each side, and look for a trail. If there’s anybody here they’ll be upstream; it’s too steep from here down. And one thing sure—they’d have to have water. Lucky the moon’s out, but I wish we had two lanterns.”