"What do you suppose has got into him?" exclaimed Tom.
"Search me; unless he's mad because we left him here."
Tom looked about as if in search of some explanation, and as usual his
scrutiny was not unfruitful.
"It looks as if he had started to get supper," said he: "there's the
rice----"
A sudden inspiration seized Roy. Pulling out the recipe book from his
duffel bag he opened it where the letter to Mary Temple lay. "I thought
so," he said shamefacedly. "I left the end of it sticking out to mark
the place and now it's in between the leaves. That's what did the
mischief; he must have found it."
"You ought to have torn it up before we started," said Tom.
"I know it, but I just stuck it in there when I was brushing up my
memory on rice cakes, and there it's been ever since. I ought never to
have written it at all, if it comes to that."
Tom made no answer. They had never mentioned that incident which was
such an unpleasant memory to them both.
"Well, we've got to find him, that's all," said Tom.
"Gee, it seems as if we couldn't possibly get along without Pee-wee
now," Roy said. "I never realized how much fun it would be having him
along. Poor kid! It serves me right for----"
"What's the use of thinking about that _now_?" said Tom, bluntly. "We've
just got to find him Come on, hurry up, get your flashlight. Every
minute we wait he's a couple of hundred feet farther away."
For the first time in all their trip, as it seemed to Roy, Tom's spirit
and interest were fully aroused.
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