CHAPTER XXIII

THE SEARCH

Following the finding of the Chinese button, and Frank's conclusion that the smugglers had carried Fenn off, the three chums, back in camp, startled by the terror the thought gave them, stood looking at each other for several seconds. They did not quite know what to make of it.

"Do you really think the smugglers have him?" asked Ned, of Frank.

"Well, it certainly looks so. Fenn is gone, and this button is evidence that some Chinese have been here."

"But might not Fenn be off in the woods somewhere, and the Chinese have paid a visit here while he was away?" asked Bart.

"Of course that's possible. But I don't believe Fenn, sick as he was, would remain away so long."

"Couldn't that brass button come from some other garment than one worn by a Chinaman?" inquired Ned.

"It could, but for the fact that it has some Chinese characters stamped on the under side, where the shank is," and Frank showed his chums the queer marks, probably made by the Celestial manufacturer. "Then, here's another bit of evidence," and he pointed to the ground.

Ned and Bart looked. There, in the soft earth, they plainly saw several footprints, made by the peculiar, thick-soled sharp-pointed shoes the Chinese wear.

"They've been here all right," admitted Bart in a low voice. "What's to be done about it?"

"I think we ought to see if we can't find Fenn," declared Ned. "We ought to follow and see where these Chinese footsteps lead. Maybe Fenn is held a prisoner."

"That's what we ought to do," agreed Frank. "However, it is too late to do anything much now. It will soon be night. I think we'd better get something to eat, sleep as much as we can, and start off the first thing in the morning. Maybe we can trail the smugglers by following the Chinese footprints, and, in that way, we may find--Fenn."

Frank hesitated a bit over his chum's name, and there was a catch in his voice. The other boys, too, were somewhat affected.

"Oh, we'll find him all right," declared Ned, confidently, to cover up the little feeling he had manifested. "If those smugglers have him, why--we'll take him away from them, that's all."

"That's the way to talk!" exclaimed Frank. "Now let's get some grub. What did we shoot all these ducks for?"

The chums soon had a meal ready, but, it must be confessed, the ducks did not taste as good as they expected they would. However, that was more because of their anxiety over Fenn, than from any defect in the birds or their cooking.

Morning came at last, after what the three Darewell boys thought was the longest night they had ever experienced. They only slept in dozes, and, every now and again, one of them would awake and get up, to see if there were any signs of the missing Fenn.

"Poor Stumpy," murmured Ned, on one occasion, when a crackling in the underbrush had deluded him into the belief that his chum had returned, but which disturbance was only caused by a prowling fox. "Poor Fenn! I hope he's in no danger!"

If he could have seen Fenn at that moment he would have had good reason for expressing that hope.

"Now for the trail!" exclaimed Bart when, after a hasty breakfast, the three boys, shouldering their guns, were ready to start. "Which way, Frank? You seem to have run across the track of these smugglers, and it's up to you to follow it. Lead on."

"I guess we'll have no difficulty in following the trail as far as it goes," remarked Frank. "When a Chinaman goes walking he leave a track that can't be duplicated by any other person or animal. Lucky it didn't rain in the night, for what tracks there are will still be plain. And we don't have to worry about a crowd walking over the place where they were. We're not troubled by many neighbors in these woods."

They started off with Frank in the lead, and he kept a careful watch for the Chinese footprints. At first they were easy to follow, as the ground was soft, and the queer cork-soled shoes had been indented deeply in the clay. But, after a time, the marks became so faint that, only here and there could they be distinguished.

Then it became necessary for Frank to station one of his chums at the place where the last step was seen, and prospect around, considerably in advance, until he picked up the next one.

"If we had a hound we wouldn't have all this trouble," he said.

"But, seeing as we haven't, we'll have to be our own dogs," retorted Ned. "I guess we can manage it."

They followed the footprints of the one Chinaman for a mile or more, and then they came to an end with an abruptness that was surprising, particularly as the last one was plainly to be seen in a patch of soft mud.

"Well, he evidently went up in a balloon," announced Bart.

"It does look so, unless he had a pair of wings in his pocket," supplemented Ned.

Frank went on ahead, looking with sharp eyes, for a recurrence of the prints. He went so far into the woods that Bart called to him.

"Do you think he jumped that distance?"

"I don't know," replied Frank. "I'm going to look--"

He stopped so suddenly that his chums were alarmed and ran forward to where he was. They found him staring at some marks in the earth, and the marks were those they sought--the footprints of the Chinese.

"How in the world did he ever get over that space without touching the ground?" inquired Ned. "He must be a wonder, or else have a pair of those seven-league-boots I used to read about in a fairy book, when I was a kid."

"Look there!" exclaimed Bart, pointing up to a tree branch overhead.

"Horse hair!" exclaimed Ned. "I didn't know a horse could switch his tail so high."

"Horses nothing!" retorted Bart. "That's hair from the queue of a Chinaman, or I'll eat my hat!"

"But what's it doing up in the tree?" demanded Frank.

"That's how he fooled us," replied Bart. "He thought some one might trail him, and when he got to a good place, he took to the trees. They are thick enough here so he could swing himself along from limb to limb, and, after he covered twenty-five feet or more, he let himself down. It was a good Chinese trick, but we got on to it. His pigtail caught in a branch. I guess it hurt him some."

"Yes, here are his footsteps again, as plain as ever," said Frank, pointing to where the queer marks were to be seen.

"But, say, we've forgotten one thing," said Ned suddenly.

"What?" asked Bart.

"We haven't looked for Fenn's footprints. All along we've been paying attention to only the marks made by the Chink. Now where does Fenn come in? This Chinese fellow couldn't carry him; could he?"

"Not unless the Chink was one of the gigantic Chinese wrestlers I've read about," admitted Bart. "That's so, Ned. We have forgotten all about Fenn's footprints."

The three boys looked at each other. In their anxiety at following the trail of the queer marks they had lost sight of the fact that they wanted a clue to Fenn, as well as to the smugglers.

"I suppose we'd better go back to camp and begin all over," suggested Ned.

"No," decided Frank, after a moment's thought. "Let's try these prints a little longer. Maybe they'll lead us to some place where we can get on Fenn's trail."

The others agreed to this plan, and, once more, they took up the search. They had not gone far before Frank, who was again in the lead, called out:

"Here we are, fellows! This explains it!"

Ned and Bart hurried forward. They found that Frank had emerged upon a well-defined trail, that led at right angles to the one they had been following. But, stranger than that was what the trail showed.

There, in plain view, were the footprints of two Chinese and the unmistakable mark of a white man's foot.

"There were two parties of smugglers!" exclaimed Ned.

"Either that, or one member of the single party made a cut through the woods, came to our camp, and then joined the others right here," said Frank.

"Still, I don't see anything of Fenn," remarked Bart.

"No? What's that?" demanded Frank quickly, pointing to footprints, quite some distance back of the others.

"Fenn's! I'll be jiggered!" cried Bart. "I can tell them by the triangle mark, made with hobnails that he hammered into the heels of his shoes, after we decided to come on this trip. He said that would prevent him slipping around on deck."

"Those are Fenn's footsteps all right--unless some one else has his shoes," declared Ned. "Come on! We're on the right trail at last." And the boys hurried forward, hope once more strong in their hearts.