“Well, if they’re in there they’ll wait a good while before I go hunting for them,” he said. “If it’s a joke they can come back when they get ready.”
And yet, somehow, he felt that it was not a joke. He and his chums were as fond of fun as any lads, and, in times past, the boys had played many a trick on each other. But there was a time for such antics, and Tom realized that this occasion was not now. He knew his comrades would realize the strain he was under, in losing his boat, and in trying to solve the mystery of the mill against the activities of Mr. Skeel and the two cronies.
“I don’t believe they’d do it,” mused Tom. “There is something wrong here. Hello, fellows!” he shouted at the top of his voice. “Dick! Bert! Jack--Jack Fitch! Where are you?”
The echoes from the darkness were his only answers.
“They’re gone,” he said, “and yet, by Jove, I don’t believe they’d go willingly--unless--”
He paused, for many thoughts were crowding to his brain. He had a new idea now.
“Unless they saw something of Skeel, or Sam and Nick, and followed them off through the woods. Maybe the hermit himself passed here, and they thought he was on the trail of the treasure. They would naturally follow him, and if I wasn’t here they would not wait for me, knowing they could explain afterward. I’ll wager that’s it. They’ve gone for the treasure. It’s all right after all.”
He felt a little better, having arrived at this decision, and proceeded to get himself a meal. He lighted the stove, made coffee, and fixed up some sandwiches from a tin of beef. It was while sipping the hot beverage that another thought came to him.
“I wonder if they went away prepared to stay all night?” he asked himself. “I’ll take a look.”
In the main, or sleeping tent, the cots had been made up that morning, as was the rule, so that, no matter how late the chums returned to camp, they could tumble into bed. The cots showed no signs of having been disturbed when Tom inspected them with a lantern. And then the lad saw something else.
The caps and sweaters of his chums still hung from the ridge-pole of the tent.
“By Jove!” cried Tom aloud. “They would hardly go off that way--in the dampness of the night--without having taken more than they wore when I started on my walk. And they had on mighty little then. Even if they had to take the trail on the jump there would have been time enough to slip on a sweater, and grab up a cap. Those fellows went off in a big hurry.”