their voices audible. When Ruth Fielding reached the ice, the pond was deserted.
"Now what could have happened to them? Where have they gone?" thought the girl.
She hesitated, not alone staring about the open pond, but looking sharply on either side into the snow-mantled woods. Reno remained by her and she had a hand upon his collar. Should she shout? Should she call for Tom Cameron and his mates? If she called, and the terrible cat was within earshot, it might be attracted to her by the sound.
"Baby!" she finally apostrophized herself. "I don't suppose that beast is anywhere near. Here goes!" and she raised her clear voice in a lusty shout.
There came, however, no reply. She shouted again and again, with a like result.
"Where under the sun could those boys have gone?" was her unspoken question. "Could they have returned to the house by some other path?"
But she did not believe this was so. Rather, she was inclined to think Tom and his comrades had gone farther than the pond. There was a good-sized stream through which the waters of this pond emptied into Rolling River. That outlet was frozen over, too, and it would be just like the three boys to explore the frozen stream.
