Occasionally it required heroic efforts to keep his eyes from closing. He envied the sleepers, so blissfully unconscious of time or place. Now he tiptoed softly up and down; then walked to the partly-open door, or stood by the window trying to penetrate the obscurity beyond.
He felt relieved to see a change gradually coming over the scene. The eastern sky became tinged with a cold and grayish light—dawn was approaching, and ghostly streamers of mist were revealed hanging low over the prairie and hills.
“Well, I was certainly never so glad to see it in my life,” exclaimed Tom, softly. “My, hasn’t the time dragged out, and——”
He abruptly paused—for, without warning, there happened the most singular thing which had ever taken place in the history of the Rambler Club.
CHAPTER XXI
LOST
Bob Somers, in his camp among the hills, with the black night about him, tried to accept the situation philosophically. It looked as though his pursuit had been a dismal failure. And here he was, cut off from any hope of reaching his friends for hours.
“If I’d only taken time to tell the fellows I’d feel much better,” he reflected.
He had built a fire in a secluded spot and eaten supper. And now there was nothing to do but think, or gaze at the flashes of light which often pierced the darkness. The stars were shining with unusual brilliancy. He tried to remember what he had read about these orbs so many million miles away, but his thoughts would constantly return to the boys he had left in the lonely ranch-house and the man who was possibly encamped somewhere on the same range of hills.
“I only hope he doesn’t see the light of this fire,” he murmured.
Long experience in the woods had steeled his nerves to stand without a tremor the rustlings and whisperings which sometimes even the slightest breeze occasions. A twig snapping, a broken branch falling earthward, or some small animal scurrying through the brush sounds in the silence of the night with unaccountable clearness.