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.