The disappointment was beyond words. They had started out in the morning full of cheerful hopes of being able to render aid to their parents who (they felt sure) were in need of assistance. And now, not only was this purpose frustrated, but they themselves were in that terrible plight of being lost in the backwoods--a hundred miles or more from the haunts of white men, with nothing but plucky hearts to help them, and limited ammunition to supply bodily needs.
The sun passed over their heads and sunk somewhere beyond the forest. They could not tell where it vanished, for the camp was amid such dense surroundings that they could hardly see beyond a hundred yards through the branches.
With dusk, and after a sparse meal, it was decided to light a fire, more for the sake of the cheering sight than the need for warmth.
Bob was the first to rise, and as he stood upright he was heard to give vent to a decided--
"What's the matter?" grunted Alf, as he also proceeded to rise.
"Matter?" repeated his chum. "Nothing; only I have stuck my head into a cloud of moths--big ones and little ones. There seems to be a regular party going on under this tree."
"It's that luminous patch in the tree that we've been sitting under," said Holden, at the same time drawing his friend's attention to what looked like a patch of light on the trunk of the maple about five feet from the ground.
"That's curious," remarked Bob, bending forward to examine the spot. "I wonder what it can be? It looks like the light on one of those luminous match-boxes that are made so that you can see them in the dark."
"They say that rotten wood sometimes has that effect----"
"But this tree is quite sound. And see! There's another the same on that tree to the right!"
It was certainly strange, and the boys picked up their guns and sauntered over to examine the next trunk, on which they found the same peculiar light attracting an equally numerous lot of moths of many descriptions.
"There's another!" exclaimed Alf, pointing ahead of him.
By this time the boys were quite excited by their discovery, and when Alf suddenly drew attention to the further discovery that the marked trees were almost in a straight line, their excitement was still further stirred.