hearts concerning Dave, the boys agreed to continue on around the
upper end of the lake on foot rather than return now for the skiff on
the more distant shore. So did they come presently to their shack and
the bright blaze Chip Slider had burning as a beacon light for them.

The ray of hope the young searchers held out to one another on their
homeward way, that they might find MacLester safe and sound in camp upon
their own arrival there, was quickly turned to disappointment. Chip had
no news--not one word of information, good or bad, to report. He had
remained faithfully in camp and had seen nothing, heard nothing unusual.

"Exceptin'," said he, "there's bad fires somewheres in the woods. I
smelled smoke the minute the wind began blowin'. All day there wasn't
hide nor hair of air a stirrin'. It was just after sundown that it started
in, real gentle, an' it's gettin' higher. You take a fire in the woods,
and a stiff gale, and you've got something to look out for, I tell you."

"We've got to rest and think a little, and have something to eat," said
Phil, paying scant attention to Slider's words. "We've done what we can
in one direction, now we must start out on some other plan."

"I knowed you'd be hungry and I've got the coffee hot. I boiled some
eggs and cooled 'em this afternoon and them are ready, too. Just you
all rest and I'll get some kind of supper," announced Slider, almost
bashfully. But his friends were truly glad to do as he suggested. The
simple, hasty meal of cold, hard-boiled eggs with plenty of bread and
butter, crackers and cheese and coffee would have been most enjoyable
too, had there been no absent one.

For an hour or two the three Auto Boys rested and sought to find the best
plan to pursue toward finding Dave MacLester. They could not do better,
they at last felt sure, than to report their mystery to the authorities at
Staretta.

From the town, also, inquiries among the villages lying beyond the great
woods could be made by telegraph or, even better, by telephone, perhaps.
If Dave had been foully dealt with, as seemed only too probable, the law's
officials could not be any too quickly informed.

It was drawing on toward midnight when the Thirty's lamps were lighted,
the engine started and all made ready for a rapid run to the town. Phil
took the wheel. Telling Slider to keep a bright blaze shining and his
ears wide open for any signal from over the lake, he threw in the gear,
let the clutch ta