“What in the world can have happened?” asked Tom, speaking aloud to himself. He had to do that to drive away some of the loneliness that thrust itself upon him as he walked around the deserted camp. “There’s something queer been going on, and I’m going to find out about it,” he added determinedly. “Maybe they’re hiding away from me for a joke.”

He made a round of the little spot there where they had camped in the wilderness, but there were few places for his chums to have hidden save in the woods themselves—the woods that were on three sides of the tents, the lake forming the fourth boundary.

“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[157] 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.

[157]

“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[158] some sandwiches from a tin of beef. It was while sipping the hot beverage that another thought came to him.

[158]

“I wonder if they 

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