Page:The Boy Land Boomer.djvu/177



"Lost!"

Dick murmured the word over and over again, as he peered through the brush, first in one direction and then in another.

"I ought to have kept track of where I was going," he went on bitterly. "Of course, away out here one place is about as good as another for hiding, but how am I going to find the others, or, rather, how are they going to find me, when they come back?"

He pushed on for nearly a quarter of an hour; then, coming to a flat rock, threw himself down for reflection.

"Just my luck!" he muttered. "I'll have to have a string tied about my neck like a poodle dog. What a clown I was to go it blind! But Nellie's cry for help made me forget everything else. Poor girl! I do hope she is safe. If that redskin—gosh! what's that?"

The flat rock was backed up by a number of heavy bushes. From these bushes had come a peculiar noise, half grunt, half yawn! Dick leaped to his feet, the (167)