"He cannot fail to hear that," he said, "and he'll answer."
No answer came. The four looked at one another in alarm. Long
Jim had been gone nearly two hours, and he was long overdue. His
failure to reply to the signal indicated either that something
ominous had happened or that- he had gone much farther than they
meant for him to go.
The others had risen to their feet, also, and they stood a little
while in silence.
"What do you think it means?" asked Paul.
"It must be all right," said Shif'less Sol. "Mebbe Jim has lost
the camp."
Henry shook his head.
"It isn't that," he said. "Jim is too good a woodsman for such a
mistake. I don't want to look on the black side, boys, but I
think something has happened to Jim."
"Suppose you an' me go an' look for him," said Shif'less Sol,
"while Paul and Tom stay here an' keep house."
"We'd better do it," said Henry. "Come, Sol."
The two, rifles in the hollows of their arms, disappeared in the
darkness, while Tom and Paul withdrew into the deepest shadow of
the trees and waited.
Henry and the shiftless one pursued an anxious quest, going about
the camp in a great circle and then in another yet greater.
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