"Maybe I will."

Ned and Bart decided on a fishing trip that afternoon, and Fenn elected to stay in camp and fix his gun, which had gotten slightly out of order.

"What you going to do, Frank?" asked Bart.

"I think I'll take a nap in the tent."

Bart and Ned, taking their poles and lines, went up along the stream, to a deeper part which they had observed in their morning journey. Fenn brought his gun out in front of the tent and proceeded to take it apart.

As for Frank, he stood about for a while, watching Fenn, and then, remarking that he thought he would stretch out on one of the cots, went inside the tent.

It was nearly two hours before Fenn had his gun fixed to suit him.

Then, oiling and cleaning it, he took some cartridges and set up a mark to shoot at.

"Come on out and try your luck!" he called to Frank.

There was no answer from the tent.

"Come on out! It's too nice to sleep!" Fenn shouted again. He fired at the target, and made a bull's-eye, much to his surprise and delight. "I say, Frank!" he shouted. "Come on, I can beat you all to pieces!"

He ran to the tent and lifted up the flap. He expected to see Frank stretched out on one of the cots, but what was his astonishment to learn that the canvas house was empty. There was no sign of Frank, and none of the cots showed any signs of having been used since they were made up that morning.

"That's queer, I didn't see him come out, and I was in front of the tent all the while," said Fenn. "He must have slipped past when I was hunting for that little screw I dropped."

He felt a vague sense of uneasiness, for, though he tried to make himself believe that Frank had come out unnoticed by him, he was not as sure of it as he desired to be. He moved toward the back part of the tent, and saw something that caused him to utter an exclamation.

For there, plainly to be seen in the dirt floor of the tent, were marks, showing where someone had crawled out under the rear wall of canvas. The sod, which was not yet tramped down, was torn, and one of the tent pegs had been pulled up by the strain. There was a rear entrance to the tent, but it was tightly laced shut, and would have taken some time to open.

"Frank didn't want me to know he was going," said Fenn to himself. "He wanted to slip away for some reason. Now I wonder what it could have been? He's been acting very queer lately. I hope--"

Just then Ned and Bart came through the woods, carrying strings of fish.

"What's the matter?" asked Bart, as Fenn came to the flap of the tent, his face plainly showing something had happened.

"Frank's gone!"

"What do you mean? Off for a stroll in the woods? Well, that's nothing."

"No, he crawled out of the back of the tent while I was fixing my gun! He didn't want me to see him go! Boys, I'm afraid there's something wrong with Frank!"

CHAPTER XV

SEARCHING FOR FRANK

For a few moments the three chums remained staring at each other. The news of Frank's disappearance came as a shock to Bart and Ned, just as it had to Fenn. And Fenn's last words set the others to thinking.

"What do you mean?" asked Ned.

"I mean that Frank's not himself lately," Fenn went on. "You must have noticed it as well as I."

"You're right," came from Bart. "There is something very strange about Frank, and I can't understand it. The more we talk about it the worse it seems."

"Unless--" began Fenn.

"Unless what?"

"Boys, I hate to mention it," said Fenn, with a strange air, and he looked all around as though he feared someone would hear him, "but I'm afraid Frank's mind is affected!"

"Do you mean he's crazy?" asked Bart, suddenly.

"No; not exactly that. But I think he has some secret trouble, and that he has worried over it so much he isn't quite himself. Don't you remember how interested he was in the King of Paprica," went on Fenn, referring to the incidents told of in the first volume of this series. "He thought the man was crazy, and he said he had been reading up a lot about insanity. I thought then maybe he had had some trouble in his family, and that might account for his not wanting us to seek to solve the mystery of the curious men."

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Ned. "Frank crazy? Why, he's no more crazy than I am!"

"I don't say he's crazy," Fenn went on, "but you must admit it looks queer the way he's been acting lately, and think of his escape through the rear of the tent. What did he want to run away for?"

"It certainly is odd," Bart admitted, "but I don't believe Frank's mind is affected. I think he has some secret which is worrying him, and, in time, he'll tell us all about it. Until then we can only wait."

"What had we better do now?" asked Fenn.

"Do? Why, nothing," answered Bart.

"When Frank gets ready he'll come back. Until then there's nothing to do."

The three chums talked over the matter from various sides. They agreed it would be better not to say anything to their comrade when he got back, as it might embarra.s.s him to be questioned. As the afternoon waned away Fenn prepared to get supper, cooking some of the fish Bart and Ned had caught.

"Shall we eat, or wait until Frank gets back?" asked Fenn, as he noticed it was six o'clock.

"Let's eat," suggested Ned. "He wouldn't want us to wait."

The meal was not a very pleasant one, for, in spite of the a.s.surances of Ned and Bart, to the effect that Frank was all right, and would soon rejoin them, all three felt a vague uneasiness they could not explain.

"Maybe he has lost his way," remarked Fenn, when it began to get dusk, and there was no sign of the missing boy.

"That's so," admitted Bart, more quickly than Fenn had supposed he would.

"We'll take our guns and fire a few shots to give him the right direction toward camp. Come on."

Ned and Fenn got their weapons in a hurry. To do something was much better than to sit still and wait for something to happen. They put some logs on the campfire, more for cheerfulness than because it was cool, though it was a bit chilly in the woods after dark. Then they moved off from the tent, each one in a different direction, and began firing their guns. They stood, as it were, on the three points of a triangle, so that if Frank heard the shooting and came toward either angle he would strike camp.

But after half an hour of firing, at five-minute intervals, Bart suggested they wait a bit before shooting any more. It was now quite dark.

"If he's within a mile or two he's heard the guns," Bart said, "and he can find his way here easily enough. If he was so far off he couldn't hear them, we'd better wait until he wanders nearer before we fire any more."

"Do you think he's lost in the woods?" asked Fenn.

"I don't know what to think, Stumpy," replied Bart, who seemed to have taken charge of things. "It's rather funny, I must admit."