Alter a while the explorers returned, both completely discouraged and perplexed.
"I don't believe there is any inlet to this wretched lake!" cried Phil, flinging himself down on a pile of robes. "I've searched every foot of coast on my side, and am willing to swear that there isn't an opening big enough for a rabbit to squeeze through, so far as I went."
"Nor could I find a sign of one," affirmed Serge, "though perhaps in the morning—"
"Hello! Where's Nel-te?" interrupted Phil, springing to his feet and gazing about him anxiously.
"He were about here just as you boys kim in," replied Jalap Coombs, suspending operations at the fire, and gazing about him with a startled expression. "I heered him playing with the dogs not more'n a minute ago."
"Well, he isn't in sight now," said Phil, in a voice whose tone betrayed his alarm, "and if we don't find him in a hurry there's a chance of our not doing it at all, for it will be dark in fifteen minutes more."
As he spoke, Phil hastily replaced the snow-shoes that he had just laid aside. Serge did the same thing, and then they began to circle about the camp with heads bent low in search of the tiny trail. At short intervals they called aloud the name of the missing one, but only the mocking forest echoes answered them.
Suddenly Serge uttered a joyful shout. He had found the prints of small snow-shoes crossed and recrossed by those of dogs. In a moment Phil joined him, and the two followed the trail together. It led for a short distance along the border of the lake in the direction previously taken by Phil, and then making a sharp bend to the right struck directly into the forest.
When the boys reached the edge of the timber they found a low opening so overhung by bushes as to be effectually concealed from careless observation. The curtaining growth was so bent down with a weight of snow that even Nel-te must have stooped to pass under it. That he had gone that way was shown by the trail dimly visible in the growing dusk, and the lads did not hesitate to follow. Forcing a path through the bushes, which extended only a few yards back from the lake, they found themselves in an open highway, evidently the frozen surface of a stream.
"Hurrah!" shouted Phil, who was the first to gain it. "I believe this is the very creek we have been searching for. It must be, and the little chap has found it for us."