"'Would you be afraid to cross over alone?' I asked him," said Slider, "an' I meant just a fair question, but he turned quick as a cat.

"'Who said I was afraid?' he spoke pretty sharp. Then he hollered out to the party that had been yellin', 'Keep singing out to guide me an' I'll paddle over to you.'

"He got in the boat and started and never a word he said. Every minute or two I heard the other one and Dave hollerin' out to each other till about the time when the boat could have touched t'other shore. Then it was still an' I ain't heard a word since. I've yelled an' yelled an' kept the fire blazin' up to steer 'em straight to this here side, but never a word of answer did I get an' hide nor hair of 'em I ain't seen."

67"Could it have been that fellow Murky? Would you know his voice?" asked Billy.

67

Chip shook his head. He was quite sure the voice was not that of the person mentioned.

"He could disguise his voice easy enough," spoke Paul dejectedly. "Dave could swim all night, but the other fellow–"

"Now wait a minute!" interrupted Phil briskly, feeling that he simply must face the situation with courage, bad as it might be. He hurried down to the beach. Loudly and again and again he called, "Oh! Dave," and "Oh, David MacLester!"

No answer came to his despairing cries. Softly the water lapped the sand at his feet. In the distance the frogs were croaking. Darkness too deep to let even the outlines of the farther shore be seen hung over Opal Lake and distinctly on the light breeze now springing up came the odor of burning pine.

"If we only had another boat!" murmured 68 Paul. "There's the skiff down by the clubhouse," he meekly suggested.

68

"Why," said Billy, "our old boat was safe enough! I can't believe they ever left the other side. That's where we've got to get to. We can go around the east end of the lake in about half an hour's walk."

Phil Way was never so perplexed–never so at a loss to know what to do. Looked to as the leader and the captain in all things, he usually was quick to suggest, quick to decide and quite generally for the best. His heart–his nerve–whatever it is that keeps the mind steady and alert at such time–came 

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