f welcome
rang out from the trees. No graceful canoe parted the fringe of bushes
that concealed the mouth of the run.

What was the matter? Were the boys sleeping so soundly that the signal
could not rouse them? This seemed the only possible explanation, so Clay
and Ned shouted more vigorously than ever, and kept it up until they
were hoarse.

Not a sound came back. The silence of the morning was absolutely
unbroken.

The boys looked at each other with pale and frightened faces. They dared
not even whisper the terrible thoughts that were in their minds. Then,
by tacit consent, they scrambled down the ragged face of the hill, and
at great peril to life and limb gained the bottom in three or four
minutes.

They partly undressed to wade to the gravel bar, for the water was more
than waist deep. Here they stopped a moment to put on their clothes, and
then, with trousers rolled high up, they waded to the mouth of the
stream, and pushed eagerly through the screen of bushes.

The scene that met their gaze filled them with dread and amazement. _The
glade was deserted. Every vestige of the camp had disappeared._

For a moment the boys could scarcely believe the evidence of their own
eyes. They hurried forward and inspected every foot of the ground.

Absolutely nothing had been left behind. The downtrodden grass, where
the tent had stood, was the only evidence to show that a camp had
recently been here.

"This is a bigger mystery than I can see through," said Ned as he bent
over the blackened stones of the fireplace. "The boys must have left
here some time yesterday, for these ashes are cold. It looks as though
they had to leave in a hurry, too, for if they had any time to spare
they would surely have placed a message where we could see it. I have
examined all the trees and bushes, and there is no sign of any."

"It's a bad business," replied Clay. "The boys would not have broken
camp without some cause. I only hope that Bug Batters and his companions
had nothing to do with it."

The same fear was in Ned's mind just then, and it was very natural that
it should be. How else could the disappearance of the boys be accounted
for?

"We can't tell anything about it," he answered evasively, "and it would
be very foolish to jump at the worst conclusions. It will be our best
plan to start down the creek at once, and I have no doubt we'll find the
camp before very long. It's not at all likely the boys have moved far
away."