CHAPTER XXXII

LOST

Pete Wharton, the guide who had been sent by Old Sam, looked critically over the little party he was leading into the woods, and along the trails that formed a network for several miles about the Russman bungalow. They did not intend to get more than three miles away from the bungalow in any direction.

"Well, I reckon we're pretty well equipped," said Pete, as if satisfied with his scrutiny. "We've got plenty of blank cartridges to fire for signals, and we've got whistles and horns. There's enough grub for the lunch, and we've got to come back by dark, anyhow."

"I've got some of those pocket electric flashlights," explained Harry.

"Well, maybe they're all right for you folks, but I'd rather have a good oil lantern or a bark torch," the guide said. "Howsomever, maybe we won't need either."

The man who ran Mr. Russman's motor boat was to go along to carry the lunch basket, which included a coffee pot and a little alcohol stove, for they did not want to wait to build a camp fire.

The girls wore their short walking skirts and stout shoes, for the trail was anything but smooth. Each one carried a stick Pete had cut for her.

Sylvia tried to get Mrs. Brownley to remain at home, but the chaperon stoutly refused to desert.

"I can walk as well as any of you girls!" she said, with a smile, "and I want to know, as soon as you do, when Roy is found."

"Oh, I do hope we find him soon!" cried Sylvia. "He might become hopelessly lost on these mountains. Men have done so before and have lost their lives from exposure."

"Not very often," Harry made haste to say. "And now, when the woods are full of camping and pleasure parties, when every lake and stream has canoeists on it, and when such a large searching party--two of them, in fact--is out, Roy surely will be found."

"I wish I had your faith," said Rose, in a low voice.

"You _must_ have it!" Harry said to her, in a whisper, so that Sylvia would not hear. "We must all help her to keep up," he urged, and Rose knew well to whom he referred. "If she collapses on our hands we shall have to send for Mr. or Mrs. Pursell, and you know what that would mean."

"Oh, I shouldn't be discouraged, I know," murmured Rose. "And I'll try not to be. But it _is_ very hard."

"I understand," said Harry, sympathetically.

"But you needn't be afraid Sylvia will collapse," Rose went on. "She isn't that kind."

"I didn't think she was, and I don't want you to show the white feather, either." He spoke a trifle sharply, but he had a purpose in it.

A little red spot burned in either of the formerly pale cheeks of Rose.

"The white feather!" she exclaimed. "How dare you suggest such a thing! I--I----"

"There, there," broke in Harry, soothingly. "No need to fly off the handle! I just don't want to put too much on Sylvia. After all, Roy is _her_ brother."

"Yes, but he is my----"

Rose stopped short, blushed vividly and turned aside her head. Harry smiled to himself.

"I thought that would fetch her," he thought. "We shan't have any more trouble from her. She'll keep her nerves together for the sake of Sylvia, and Sylvia will do the same for Rose. That," he added to himself more or less judicially, "is what might be called playing both ends against the middle." Harry was pleased with his tactics.

Under the direction of Pete Wharton they adopted a systematic plan of search. Pete knew every trail in the woods, and had them in his head as a sort of map. Pete began at a certain place in reference to the "deserted bungalow," as the girls often called the place to themselves, and he said they would follow each trail in turn until they had reached the three-mile limit. In some cases, he added, they might take in a four-mile section.

They would start back toward the bungalow by another route on reaching their set limit on the trail, and so cover the ground zigzag fashion.

Now and then, as the party advanced through the dense forest, pierced only by narrow trails, they stopped and shouted Roy's name. Occasionally shots were fired, and horns or whistles sounded. The other party of guides, under the direction of Old Sam, was far enough away to keep the sounds from conflicting, for Sam's party, also, was doubtless calling and signalling in various ways.

Sylvia had hopes that it would take only a little searching on the part of her friends to discover Roy. She had a feeling that he would become weary of wandering in the woods all alone, that the delirium would leave him, and that he would be found trying to make his way back to the bungalow.

"And if he does go back--I mean if he wanders back of his own accord, we'll not say anything to him; shall we?" propounded Rose, as she and the others paused for a moment on the brink of a little hill, while Mrs. Brownley, in the rear, sat on a log to rest.

"Say anything to him--what do you mean?" demanded Sylvia, who was in advance, and she turned around quickly. "Why shouldn't we say anything to him? Just because he----"

"Oh, I didn't mean it that way at all, my dear!" exclaimed Rose quickly, as the red mounted to her cheeks again. "You didn't understand me. I meant that if we didn't find Roy----"

"Oh, we are sure to find him!" interrupted Hazel. "Don't suggest such dire possibilities, my dear."

"I didn't exactly mean that, either," hastily protested Rose.

"Give her a chance," suggested Sylvia. "I guess we're all so tired and worried that we are getting on one another's nerves. What do you want to say, Rose?" and she smiled at her chum; smiled, it is true, but in so wan and mirthless a fashion that the hearts of all ached for her.

"What I was trying to say," resumed Rose, "was that if Roy did, by some good fortune, make his way back to the bungalow alone, as he is very apt to do, and if we came back from our search and found him there, wouldn't it be better not to say anything to him about his having gone away?"

"Why, it isn't a secret; is it?" asked Alice.

"Oh dear!" half laughed Rose. "I do seem to be very stupid to-day, somehow or other."

"Perhaps it is we who are stupid," suggested Sylvia. "I think I know what you mean, though. You----"

"No, let me say it for myself," insisted Rose. "Otherwise I shall surely think I am failing in my descriptive powers, and I'll never fit in at college. I mean that it might embarrass Roy to have us mention that he--well, to be frank, that he went off in a fit of delirium. It would be better to ignore it altogether, I think, and act as if nothing had happened. Just try and talk naturally to him, about the weather, or camping, or----"

"Rose, you're the sweetest girl!" interrupted Sylvia, putting her arms about her chum. "I never would have thought of that. I'd have gone and blurted out something about how terrible it was for him to run off the way he did, or I'd ask him where he had been hiding, or else worry about his health, and ask a lot of foolish questions. I'm so glad you thought of that!"

"Oh, perhaps it would have come to you, also," said Rose, not wanting to take too much credit to herself. "But, really, don't you think that would be the wisest plan?"

"Most certainly!" agreed Alice. "It's always best, when a person is out of his mind--Oh, I didn't mean----!" and she stopped herself by putting her hand over her lips, giving Sylvia a conscience-stricken glance.

"I don't in the least mind, Alice dear," interrupted the sister of the missing youth. "Roy certainly is out of his mind, only temporarily, I hope--we all hope," she added, as she saw Rose about to interpose an objection. "There is no use mincing words," Sylvia went on. "Roy is what might be called mildly insane----"

"Oh!" interjected Rose, with a sort of gesture of denial.

"We might as well meet the issue bravely," insisted Sylvia, "we can handle it better so."

"As long as we know it isn't a family defect, and that it only came to Roy as a sort of horrid disease," added Alice.

Sylvia nodded, gravely, and resumed.

"So I think it will be well to adopt the plan Rose has suggested and simply act, when we see Roy again, as if nothing had happened. That, I have read, is the best way to treat people who have had anything the matter with their minds. It keeps them from brooding on their troubles, and helps them to recover more quickly.

"That is what they do in asylums, I believe," she added, after a pause.

"Oh, don't say that--don't use that word," begged Rose.

"Well, sanitarium, if you like that better," said Sylvia. "But, really, I am not at all sensitive on the subject now. I will admit that, at first, it was a terrible shock--as was this one, of finding that Roy had run away. But I am getting bravely over it. Why should one shun, or try to ignore, or cover up, a disease of the mind, when we are so ready to talk about diseases of the body? I have often heard women boast of having been successfully operated on for appendicitis, but if there was the least mention of some mental ailment, even though it be a temporary one, they shrank from it as if it were some disgrace."

"Of course it isn't a disgrace!" exclaimed Rose, warmly, coming to the defence of the absent Roy. "You look at it in just the right way, Sylvia; a disease of the mind is no different from one of the body, though it may be more distressing. But, as you say, this is only temporary, I'm sure. Roy will soon be with us again, and like himself."

"And I pray that it may be soon," murmured Sylvia.

There was a suspicion of tears in her eyes; nor were those of her chums altogether dry.

Alice, indeed, saved them all from breaking down completely, by exclaiming:

"Then it's agreed! If we get back, and find Roy waiting for us at the bungalow, we'll just be as jolly as we can, and pretend it was all a sort of lark, or game."

"That's it," said Sylvia. "Of course this is dependent on finding that Roy's mind is still troubling him when next we see him. He may be altogether over it."

"For which we shall all hope and pray," said Rose in a low voice.

"Yes," agreed Hazel. "After all, this may be the best thing in the world for him. I mean," she added quickly, as she caught Sylvia's startled glance, "it may be the crisis, or the turning point, just as a fever is highest before it breaks and the patient gets better."

"Well, there's nothing like looking on the bright side of things," remarked Sylvia, and she tried to infuse cheerfulness and gaiety into her voice, but it was a hard task.

"They are calling us," said Rose, after a moment's pause, the silence that fell being punctuated by a hail from one of the searching party.

"Yes, it's Pete, and he's signalling to us," agreed Alice, looking off through the trees.

"I wonder----" began Sylvia. "No, he hasn't found anything. I guess he's just tired of waiting for us," she added, for the guide, having motioned to the girls to follow, again set off along the trail. "He'd have given the sign if he had discovered any clue."

For the parties had adopted some simple visual signs, as well as audible ones, that they might signal to one another when some distance apart. And Pete had not given the "found" symbol.

Talking, speculating, wondering, the girls advanced once more, heading down a little wooded glade where the guide could be observed, peering here and there for any sign that would indicate the passage of the missing young man.

"Anything hopeful?" asked Sylvia, as they came within speaking distance.

"No, miss, I'm sorry to say it, but that's the truth. It don't look as if he'd passed this way. But there's a lonely sort of trail, a little farther on, and I want to take a look at that."

"Lonely! What do you mean?" asked Rose.

"Well, I mean it's one that's seldom travelled, miss, and the young man, being as you might say--er--sort of----"

"Out of his head, Pete. You needn't mind saying it," put in Sylvia, wishing to put the honest old fellow at his ease.

"Well, miss, since you're so nice about it--out of his head, then. Since he's that way, and partly not responsible for what he does, I thought maybe he might take the lonesome trail from choice, though most folks wouldn't."

"I see," agreed the sister.

"That's why I spoke about comin' in here," Pete went on. "It's just possible we'll see some signs if we go in a way."

He led the way into what soon proved to be a dense patch of wood, almost a swamp in fact, though through it ran a trail that was faintly defined.

"It doesn't look as if any one had been along here for ages," whispered Alice.

Somehow it seemed natural to whisper in that eerie place.

"I told you it was lonesome, miss," answered the guide. "But if you don't want to come----"

"Oh, we wouldn't desert for the world!" cried Sylvia, quickly. "Go on, Pete, we'll follow."

And on they went. The way led downward, and as they reached the lowest point, where the water lay in pools, there came a sudden noise in the bushes, to one side of the trail.

"Oh!" screamed Rose, nor was she alone in being alarmed, for the others echoed her cries.

"What is it?" asked Sylvia.

A small reddish-coloured animal, with seemingly an unnecessarily large tail, sprang out, was seen for a flash, and then disappeared in the underbrush.

"A dog!" cried Alice. "Maybe it is helping in the search--one of the guide's dogs?" and she looked questioningly at Pete.

"It was a fox," he said, drily. "There's been a den of 'em in here for years. They're harmless."

The girls breathed more easily, and kept on. But they soon exhausted the possibilities of the lonely trail, and found not a sign that Roy had traversed it.

"Well, no luck there," said Pete, as they emerged again. "But there's one satisfaction," he went on, looking at Sylvia, "you said your brother was used to the woods; didn't you?"

"Yes," she answered. "He would be quite at home in the forest."

Roy was a woodsman of no small skill, and he had a good sense of direction, which is invaluable to a hunter or forest-lover. Set Roy down in a big wood, and let him once get an idea of the points of the compass and it would be difficult to lose him. But that, of course, was when he was in normal health. Now, alas, he was not himself. And what had happened to him Sylvia and the others could only surmise.

But Sylvia's hope that her brother would soon be found was doomed to disappointment. As the hours passed, and as trail after trail was carefully scanned, and no sign of the missing one was found, the spirits of all fell.

For signs of Roy were looked for, as well as his actual presence. That was the value of having Pete along. He could see things the others would pass by unwittingly. It might be a shred of clothing, caught on some bramble or bush, or a mark in the soft dirt of the trail, a footprint in a bed of moss.

I say it _might_ be any of those things, but, unfortunately, it was none of them.

Harry had been able to describe the kind of shoes Roy wore. They were the same sort that Harry himself had on, heavy, with soles well studded with nails to prevent slipping. If any one with such a pair of shoes had stepped into soft dirt, a mark would have been left that easily would have been recognised.

But no such marks came to the notice of the guide, and when noon came he shook his head in puzzled fashion. But he took good care not to let Sylvia see him give this indication of discouragement.

"Oh, shall we ever find him?" Sylvia murmured, as she sank down wearily on a log to rest.

"Of course we'll find him!" exclaimed Harry, signalling to Pete to confirm this assertion.

"Sartin sure, Miss Pursell," said the tall, gaunt, blue-eyed man of the woods. "We haven't struck the most likely trails as yet. We'll hit them after dinner. Now set up, all of you, and have grub--that is, askin' your pardon, lady, for applyin' sech a common name to victuals," he added, quickly, with a bow in the direction of Mrs. Brownley.

"That's all right," she assured him heartily, and with a manner that put him at his ease at once. "I've heard many an expression like that from my girls," and she smiled at Sylvia and her chums.

"We call it 'eats,' or 'feed,'" Alice volunteered.

"Oh, I know, my dears!" said their former teacher. "You can't be in a girls' school as long as I have and be easily shocked. But I think it will do us all good to have some of Pete's 'grub.' I know I am almost famished," and she smiled in the best of good-fellowship.

The coffee was soon boiling on the alcohol stove, Pete having found a spring of delicious water. Then the "table" was set on a fallen log, and the sandwiches passed around. All ate with better appetites than at any time since the discovery of the "deserted bungalow."

But, even as she ate, Sylvia would pause now and then to listen, or she would gaze off into the woods as if hoping to see her brother come walking along amid the trees, in his right mind at least, if not clothed. For it could not but have happened that he must be in rather a ragged and dishevelled state now as regards his garments, if he had tramped much through the dense forest.

But there came no sign, no sound, and again the party undertook the search, but in somewhat better spirits. That is what food will do for one, even though it may have to be actually forced down. The human body, after all, is material, though the mind has a great control over it.

They went well up the mountain around Lower Saranac Lake, and even penetrated to the shore of the lake itself, keeping along that for some distance. But it was all without avail.

"Of course," said Pete, slowly, when he noticed the shadow on Sylvia's face deepening, "Old Sam and the others may have had some news of him before this. We won't know that until we get back to the bungalow, though."

"But to go back we would have to give up the search here," Roy's sister said. "And we can't do that. We'll keep on until dark, and then we'll go to the bungalow, and if we have no good news I hope some will be waiting for us."

"I hope so," came from Rose, as she stalked on beside Sylvia.

There were two trails close together at one point, though they separated widely farther on. Sylvia and her three chums, with Mrs. Brownley, were on this, while the guide, with Mr. Russman, his son, Harry and the boatman, were on the other. Just how it happened no one could ever explain, but the girls must have gone farther than they intended, for, of a sudden, they found themselves down in a little glade alone. It was Sylvia who first discovered it.

"Why, girls!" she cried. "Where are the others?"

"Just back there a way," declared Alice, reassuringly.

"We must return to them at once," said the chaperon. "It will never do to be separated."

They followed the trail back, but when they came to the place where the divergence began there was no sight of the others. For a moment the girls looked wonderingly at each other, and then Sylvia said:

"We must shout!"

They did, but they could not be sure they were answered. Certainly some sounds came back to them, but it may have been the echoes.

"Hark!" suddenly exclaimed Hazel, when in another moment there might have been a panic of fear for all of them. "Some one is coming."

There was a sound of approaching footsteps, and the breaking of underbrush.

"Oh, if it should be----" began Sylvia, hopefully.

But the light in her eyes died out a moment later, as an elderly man came into view. The girls had never seen him before, but he seemed to be one who lived in the woods.

"Afternoon, ladies," was his cordial greeting.

"Oh, are you looking for--him?" asked Sylvia.

"For whom, miss?" He seemed a bit puzzled.

"My brother. He is lost in these woods--has been since last night. We are searching for him with a party, but we took the wrong trail. However, the others must be near here. But have you seen my brother?" Quickly she described Roy.

"By hemlock!" exclaimed the old man, clapping his hand on his leg. "Say, I wouldn't be surprised if that _was_ him!"

"Who? Oh, where? Tell me!" begged Sylvia, in her eagerness catching hold of his arm.

"Why, about an hour back," said the old man, "I was passing along the Ampersand trail, and on top of Bald Mountain I see a feller outlined against the sky. He didn't have no hat on, and he seemed to be actin' sort of queer. I thought it was one of the campers around here. Some of them is kinder foolish," he added, apologetically.

"I know--go on!" exclaimed Sylvia.

"Well, I didn't do nothin'," said the old man. "I just watched this feller a bit, and come on. Now I meet you and----"

"Oh, I'm sure that was Roy!" Rose cried. "Which way is it to Bald Mountain?"

"Right back on this trail a mile or so," and he pointed to the one he had been travelling.

"Come on!" cried Sylvia, eagerly. "Come on!" She hardly paused to thank their informant, but rushed along the trail. Hardly knowing what they were doing, but overcome by the excitement and the hope of finding Roy, the others followed. They did not even think of Mr. Russman, Harry and the others. They were intent on getting to Bald Mountain as fast as they could.

Excitement gave them strength. Their weariness seemed to vanish magically. Even Mrs. Brownley kept up with the girls, and she was not a young woman.

The trail was not a plain one, but by this time the girls had become used to following even a faint path through the woods. On and on they fairly rushed. If they thought of the others at all it was to come to the hasty, if incorrect, conclusion that they could easily go back and find them once they had located Roy.

"How far did he say it was to Bald Mountain?" asked Hazel, when the pace had slackened a little.

"A mile or so," replied Alice.

"Well, we've come more than a mile--more than two, I should say," Hazel went on. "I say, girls, we'd better pull up a bit, and think of what we're doing."

"Oh, don't stop!" begged Sylvia. "We _must_ find him!"

"But we must find Bald Mountain first," said Hazel. "And I don't see any signs of it. We seem to be down in a sort of swamp."

They were, indeed, on low ground, and the trail now turned downward instead of upward.

"Can it be that we are--lost?" cried Rose. She hesitated over the word.

"Lost!" gasped Alice. "Oh, it can't be!"

"Keep on a little farther," Sylvia urged. "We may come to the mountain any minute now."

But the farther they went the more the trail sloped downward. Clearly they had come in the wrong direction.

"We are lost!" said Rose at last.