"

"Jim don't do things by halves," said the shiftless one. "Guess he's
beatin' up every squar' inch o' the bushes. He'll be here soon."

A quarter of an hour passed, and Long Jim did not return; a half hour,
and no sign of him. Henry cast off the blanket and stood up. The night
was not very dark and he could see some distance, but he did not see
their comrade.

"I wonder why he's so slow," he said with a faint trace of anxiety.

"He'll be 'long directly," said Tom Ross with confidence.

Another quarter of an hour, and no Long Jim. Henry sent forth the low
penetrating cry of the wolf that they used so often as a signal.

"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. They did not
find Jim, and the dusk was so great that they saw no evidences of his
trail. Long Jim had disappeared as completely as if he had left the
earth for another planet. When they felt that they must abandon the
search for the time, Henry and Shif'less Sol looked at each other in a
dismay that the dusk could not hide.

"Mebbe be saw some kind uv a sign, an' has followed it," said the
shiftless one hopefully. "If anything looked mysterious an' troublesome,
Jim would want to hunt it down."

"I hope so," said Henry, "but we've got to go back to the camp now and
report failure. Perhaps he'll show up to-morrow, but I don't like it,
So