“We’re with you!” came a chorus of hearty voices.
By this time Mr. Durland had come up and asked the cause of the excitement. He listened to the recital of their fears with a very grave face. In a moment the boys were flying around everywhere to carry out his directions.
“Some of you boys go and get anything that you can find in the lodge or out of it,” he said, “to dig with. There are three or four old shovels there that may come in handy and a lot of trowels that we use for digging up specimens of flowers. Hurry, boys!”
In a short time the Scouts were ready to start, and Don, forgetting all about his sore foot, led them rapidly along the trail.
Dick turned to Mr. Durland and asked him how he meant to use the shovels.
“There is great danger in this part of the country on account of the landslides that frequently occur,” the Scout-Master explained. “Of course, they are not usually on a very large scale. They are very often caused by a loose rock starting to fall from the top of a mountain and so loosening masses of stones and dirt.”
“But do you suppose that the boys could possibly be caught in one of them?” Dick asked, while his face grew white at the very thought.
“There is a chance, of course,” Mr. Durland replied anxiously, “and because of that chance, I thought it was best to bring the shovels along.”
“Be prepared!” Dick murmured, and felt a curious tightening of his heartstrings as he thought of his comrades in distress.
Finally Don brought them to the clump of bushes behind which O’Brien and Levine had been hidden. The boys noticed how the ground had been trampled down and the bushes torn aside, and at once it flashed through their minds that the boys might have been attacked. Here Don seemed to lose the trail, but the Scouts now readily picked it up, trained for trailing as they were, and they started on again with redoubled speed.