“It’s possible,” he was told. “If they care at all for the child, when he’s missed it seems to me there would be some stir; and one of the first things that ought to occur to his father would be to notify any campers around here, so they could be on the lookout for the kid as they trailed through the bush.”
“Phil is right,” asserted Ethan Allen, hastily. “It’s sure up to Baylay to get a move on him and do something, if he’s lost his boy. He couldn’t expect to stay at home and wait for others to find the lost child.”
“We don’t know,” said Phil, “but the chances are the mother and father have been pretty near being distracted because by now they must feel there’s no chance of the kid being alive, unless he was picked up by a roving hunter or trapper.”
The boy listened to all they said, though of course it was not likely that he understood much of it. He could see nothing but friendly smiles on each one of the four faces by the fire; and he knew as well as anything could be known that his lines had fallen in pleasant places.
When this matter had been settled all of them seemed to be relieved of a weight. The fact of the matter was they had already taken a great fancy to the waif, and like Lub none of them wanted to see him depart.
It did begin to blow and snow heavily ere another hour had passed. X-Ray declared that from the signs they were in for a fierce blizzard; and he told some fearful stories he had read concerning these dreadful storms.
Lo! and behold the treacherous weather played him a sly trick, for the sun came out even while he was in the midst of the most doleful yarn, and his chums gave him a merry laugh in consequence.
At the same time there was enough of threat in the clouds to keep them in camp that morning, finding plenty to do to employ their time.
In prowling around Phil had made several little discoveries concerning the abiding places or haunts of certain small fur-bearing animals that frequented the border of the lake. His collection of flashlight pictures was lacking in some particulars, and he believed it would pay him to commence work trying to obtain results while on the spot.
“I wouldn’t want to go back home without a few additions to my splendid series of flash exposures,” he told the others while getting things ready so that he could place his cunning little trap when the shadows of evening began to gather; “and I want to see if the animals up here in this half Arctic region are as obliging as they are down in our section of the country, so as to take their own pictures for a poor hard worked photographer who needs sleep, and can’t afford to sit up all night just to press a button and fire the cartridge.”