So they all raised their voices, and sent out a series of whoops that might have made any Indian warrior envious.

"Listen!" cried Jack, after this had gone on for a full minute.

The last echo had died away, and complete silence followed.

"Never a thing!" exclaimed George.

"Oh! hark! what is that?" cried Nick, eagerly.

"Only an owl far away, answering us," Jack declared, promptly.

"Must think we"re trying to give him the laugh," Herb remarked; although he was feeling in anything but a joking mood, with the strange disappearance of Josh weighing on his mind so heavily.

"Come on, boys," Jack called out. "I"ve got the lantern lighted, and we"ll try our luck following his trail as long as we are able to see it.

Oh! and Herb, if you and Nick want, you might as well eat something while we"re gone."

"Nixy for me," Herb made answer. "My appet.i.te seems to have gone up the flue. But we could be cooking something, in case you found Josh, and all came in hungry."

"Sure, that"s right," Nick hastened to add. "It"ll give us something to keep our minds busy, and that means a whole lot. Good-bye, boys; and the best of luck!"

"We sure hope you find our chum, safe and sound," Herb added, feelingly.

"One thing more," Jack went on to say; "If Josh should happen in while we"re gone, you"ll want to let us know."

"That"s right; I hadn"t thought of that," said Herb.

"Then listen. Fire both barrels of your gun, about two seconds apart.

Then repeat the volley twice more, making six shots in all. We"ll understand what you want to tell us, and that we"re needed here. That"s all. Come on, George and Jimmy."

Nick watched them pa.s.s away, and the face of the fat boy told that his soul was troubled. Yet it was not so much of himself he thought, but the strange mystery hovering over this vanishing of Josh.

Jack knew where the long-legged would-be hunter had last been seen, and accordingly he made direct for that spot.

Evidently he had no especial trouble in discovering the tracks left by the heels of Josh"s shoes, for those left behind saw the trio move directly away. Soon the flitting glimmer of the moving lantern vanished entirely among the thickets covering the land in places.

Josh had headed down the sh.o.r.e when he went forth to try and add to the camp larder by knocking down a bunch of the tasty little snipe and other sh.o.r.e birds, flocks of which were seen whenever the tide changed, and the mud flats became partly bare.

That meant he had gone west, for the boys had fallen into the habit of saying "down" as long as they were headed south; and until they turned up the coast it would continue that way.

Jack led with his lantern, and carrying the rifle in his other hand. For some little time the three boys kept on this way. When the tracks became harder to see, Jack used his judgment, and managed to pick up the trail again every time.

All the while George and Jimmy were casting uneasy looks ahead. The moon being past its prime, would not rise for some time; and as a consequence all was pitch darkness around them. It was easy to imagine all sorts of perils lurking in that gloom beyond. Every simple little sound, such as a stray "c.o.o.n scampering away at the coming of the swinging light, caused them a new quiver.

George could not get that strange motor boat out of his mind. He believed that it had left Miami ahead of them, for it was gone on the morning after their arrival. And the chances were that it had come down here ahead of them.

Having more or less of a vivid imagination, George was picturing all sorts of strange things as happening. He even looked back along the career of their chum, Josh, trying to figure out some romantic reason for these people on the strange craft to want to kidnap the long-legged youth.

Despite his best efforts, however, this was pretty much a failure. There never was a fellow with more of an ordinary every-day past than the said Josh. George had known him since they were kids together, first starting in to school. His father was one of the substantial men of the town; and, so far as George knew, there had never been even the faintest rumor of anything singular attaching to the Purdue family.

So George, baffled in this respect, had to give it up, and confess himself altogether at sea. But if Josh had simply gone and lost himself, then why had he not answered their shouts?

They had now been following the trail of the missing chum quite some time, and found themselves at a considerable distance from camp. Every now and then, apparently, Josh had made his way to the sh.o.r.e, to find out whether there were any flocks of birds in sight; but as he still kept moving on, he evidently met with disappointment.

That he continued to wander on was evidence of a determination to find some sort of game. Josh was not much of a hunter, and he did hate to be unmercifully guyed by Jimmy and Nick, whenever he came back empty handed.

"It can"t be long now, before we make some sort of discovery," George finally remarked.

"I agree with you," Jack said, over his shoulder.

"How far are we from camp now, Jack?" continued the skipper of the _Wireless_.

"Perhaps a mile, more or less," answered the pilot of the expedition.

"But not so far as to be beyond the sound of the yell we put up, eh?"

continued George.

"Unless Josh suddenly became stone deaf, he must have heard us," replied the other.

"See here; you"ve got something on your mind; why not share it with us, Jack? You"re bothered about something, too. If it don"t take in those queer acting fellows on the power boat, what does ail you?" and George caught hold of his chum as the other arose from examining the trail once more.

"Oh! I don"t know as there could be anything in it," Jack admitted, slowly, as if loth to air his secret fears.

"But tell us what you do think, even if it does seem impossible, Jack."

"Only this, that if our chum chanced to slip into some muck bed, he might have been sucked down in the slimy stuff before he could even shout for help," was the gruesome remark to which Jack gave utterance.

CHAPTER VIII.

TRACKED TO THE BAYOU.

"Oh! I hope it won"t turn out as bad as that, Jack!" gasped George.

"The poor spalpeen!" whimpered Jimmy, apparently shocked by what their leader had just remarked.

"Now," Jack hastened to say, "don"t make up your minds, boys, that Josh has run against that sort of a hard deal, just because it flashed into my mind. You wanted to know why I was in such a sweat, and I told you.

But, honest Injun, after I"ve spoken my mind, I just can"t bring myself to believe it. We"ll find our chum, sooner or later. Perhaps, after all, it"ll turn out that he had a bad tumble, and hurt himself so he wasn"t able to let us know."

"Well, as long as we"re able to follow his trail, we hadn"t ought to give up in despair," George a.s.serted, very sensibly.

"Sure, we"ve shown in the past that we"re not built that way," Jimmy thought fit to remark, firmly.

"Then let"s be going on," Jack wound up the conference by saying.

For the fifth time the trail approached the water again. Josh evidently hated to give up the idea that had been in his mind when he left camp.

If there were any of those dainty little sh.o.r.e birds to be had, he wanted to get a crack at the same; though by this time he must have become aware of the fact that he was wandering much farther away than he had intended doing in the start.