“Now, the first thing you want to do is to keep cool,” advised Blake. “Take it easy—nothing could have happened to her.”

“Oh, but you don’t know—there might,” gasped Alice.

“What is it?” asked Jack, as he and Phil came up on the run, having followed Blake when they heard the girls calling.

“Natalie is missing!” exclaimed Mrs. Bonnell. “Marie and I went for a walk in the woods, leaving Mabel and Natalie here. When did she leave you, Mabel?”

“Soon after you started out.”

“That’s nearly two hours ago. And she’s been gone all this time,” commented the Guardian. “Did she say which way she was going?”

“No,” answered Mabel. “I didn’t pay much attention. I was looking after that beef stew, and I didn’t want it to burn, so I kept going in the tent ever so often.”

“I heard Natalie say, when I was over the stove at one time, that she was going into the woods, and I took it for granted that she would follow you.”

“We didn’t see anything of her,” said Marie. “We walked slowly at first, so she could easily have caught up to us.”

“And it’s getting darker,” murmured Alice, who had been over to the boys’ camp, doing a bit of sewing for her brother. She had followed them as they ran to Dogwood in response to the calls.

“Oh, isn’t it too bad!” exclaimed Mrs. Bonnell.

“She’ll turn up all right!” asserted Blake. “Then you didn’t see which way she went, Mabel?”

“No, I was in the cooking tent. But she wouldn’t go off the main path; would she?”

“It doesn’t seem so,” spoke Marie. “Oh, we must find her! She can’t stay in the woods,” and there was a catch in her voice.

“Now, take it easy, sis,” advised her brother. “We’ll find her all right. All we’ll have to do is to begin a search. She probably went farther than she meant to and it takes longer to come back. Come on, boys, we’ll start on the trail.”

“You must have lanterns!” insisted the Guardian. “It will soon be too dark to see. We have a number of ’em. Girls, light ’em up!”

“Are we going to stay here—alone?” asked Alice.

“You always have,” said her brother.

“But Natalie——”

“Let ’em come along, if they want to,” suggested Jack. “It’s no fun waiting around for news. But we’ll soon find her,” he added. “We’ll each take a different trail—there are three main ones into the woods—Nat must be on one of those. Each fellow can take a girl, and Mrs. Bonnell can be a sort of director of operations.”

The girls paired off with their brothers, and soon the woods bore the appearance of a forest wherein flickered big fireflies, for the lanterns bobbed here and there amid the trees, as do the insects on a June evening.

As the boys and Camp Fire Girls went slowly along they called from time to time, their voices echoing through the fast-darkening woods. But there came no answering cry.

The three main trails into the woods did not diverge greatly, and it was possible for the three searching parties to keep in communication with one another. From time to time one or the other called, asking for any news. But none was forthcoming.

“Oh, we must find her!” exclaimed Mrs. Bonnell. “Something must have happened to her!”

“I think that must be it,” agreed Jack; Mrs. Bonnell having accompanied him and his sister. “Maybe she has fallen and——&rdq............