"It takes Pee-wee to manage the big ones," said Warde.

"Poor kid," Roy said.

Again neither spoke. A loose board creaked somewhere in the darkness. A crude little weathervane, the handiwork of some departed soldier, rattled nearby.

"_Listen_," said Roy. "Do you hear that voice again?"

As he spoke a long, discordant cry could be heard somewhere in the distance, ending in a spasmodic jerk. It was like nothing human. Yet strangely it suggested something human. As if some unearthly ghoul were trying to simulate the wailing of human anguish.... Then again it was quite grotesque, bearing no resemblance to the cry of a living thing.

"What do you suppose it is?" Warde asked.

"It's a--I don't know," said Roy doubtfully. "I never heard anything just like that before."

The sound was not continuous, but came at intervals.

"Do you know what I'd like to do?" said Warde. "I'd like to get just one good look at Blythe while he's lying asleep. I'd like to see his face calm and still like in the picture. I'd like to see it when he isn't looking at me."

"That's easy," said Roy, caught by the idea. "Let's go. Maybe we can tell better."

They returned to their camp, as they called it, through the dismantled frame of the first shack, and past the sleepers under the big elm.

Pee-wee was there, tied in a bowline knot, the official knot of the Raven patrol, sleeping the sleep of the righteous.

"If he should hear us, remember we're just turning in," said Roy.

"Have you got your flashlight?" Warde asked.

"Sure," Roy whispered. "Walk softly."

They entered the sleeping shack, "Blythe's Bunk," and tiptoed to the spot where Blythe usually lay. Then Roy turned on his light.

The two scouts stood appalled, speechless. Blythe's old shabby coat which he always folded and used as a pillow was there with the depression made by his head still in it. But Blythe had gone away....

[Footnote 2: Edition of 1910, containing much interesting and important matter omitted from subsequent editions.]

CHAPTER XXI

THE DIAGONAL MARK

Warde had always his wits with him. "_Shh_, don't wake up the troop," he whispered. "Come outside."

"We'll need them all--alarm--" Roy whispered excitedly.

"Shut up and come outside," Warde whispered emphatically. He picked up Blythe's coat and, tiptoeing, led the way out into the night. "He hasn't gone away," he said more freely. "Don't you see this coat? Do you think he'd go away without his coat? Stick your flashlight here, _quick_; here's our chance."

Warde held the collar of the poor threadbare coat close to Roy's light.

There, on the inside was sewn a little cloth square on which was printed:

DOMINION CLOTHING CO.

QUEBEC, CANADA.

"I see," Roy whispered, not knowing what he said.

"Give me the light and wait a second--shh," said Warde.

Before Roy knew it Warde had re-entered the shack and was folding and replacing the coat where he had found it. In a kind of daze Roy saw the bright spot near the empty balsam couch, saw his companion's quick, silent movements, saw the scouts lying asleep in the dim light. Then all was darkness within and he saw no more.

"Did you feel in the pockets?" Roy asked as they betook themselves through the darkness to a safe distance. He still whispered, though there was no need of it now. He was nervous, agitated.

"No, I'm not in that line of business," said Warde.

"I guess he's Claude Darrell all right," said Roy. "What shall we do?

Try to find him? There's that voice again. Do you hear it? It's over there--west."

"Not find him but _follow_ him," said Warde. "If we can."

"You stay here," said Roy; "give me the light, I'll track him." Roy was master here and Warde could only accede.

"What are we going to do when we find him?" Roy asked.

"We're going to find out what _he's_ doing," Warde said.

Nimbly, as silently as a panther, Roy retraced his steps to the shack.

For a few minutes Warde stood alone, waiting, conscious of Roy's experience and superiority in those more active arts of the scout. He had not the slightest knowledge in which direction Blythe had gone and his patrol leader was going to wrench this knowledge from the darkness.

Off in the distance the unearthly voice crooning and whining in the night. The very air seemed charged with something impending.

Presently Warde saw two quick flashes of the light, then two more. He was glad that he knew the Silver Fox patrol signs well enough to know the meaning of that one. It signified "_Come._"

"He went in his bare feet," said Roy; "look there. See?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: SUDDENLY OUT OF THE DARKNESS SPED A FORM.]

Upon the soft ground was the imprint of a bare heel with the additional imprint of a diagonal mark upon it. Perhaps Warde would not have recognized this for a heel print, nor the faint suggestions of another print two or three inches distant, for a toe print. But these were easily recognizable by Roy and they indicated the direction also.

"I'm glad he didn't have his shoes on," he said. "Now we know he's got some kind of a scar on his foot. Come ahead, follow me."

Eight or ten of these prints, among many others which Roy did not pause to distinguish, brought them to the concrete road which runs through the old reservation, the Knickerbocker Road, as it is called. Here the leader of the Silver Foxes was baffled. There was no following footprints here.

They paused for a moment, considering. The white road stretched like a ribbon straight north and south. The temporary makeshift cross streets could be seen in black outline with their silent, ghostly, gloomy buildings, standing in more or less regular order. Here and there was an area of lesser darkness where some boarded side had fallen away revealing the fresher wood of the interiors.

The two scouts moved northward a little way along this permanent, central road, the backbone of the old camp. Still they could hear that strange, unearthly voice.

Suddenly out of the darkness near them sped a form. It crossed the road, entered one of the old buildings and hurriedly emerged, entering another. It seemed like some lost spirit of the night. It pa.s.sed within ten feet of the scouts, never noticing them. It seemed intent with a kind of diabolical intentness. Meanwhile the voice continued, now mournful, now petulant, now clear, now modulated, according to the rising wind.