It then became evident to the boy that he had entered the lake at a different point, for while it had been a little over his knees at the deepest part before, now it came to his thighs and was steadily deepening. In the middle the water was almost to his waist and the boy began to be alarmed concerning the contents of his pack, which he had stuck to throughout despite the pain in his foot. But while the water came to within six inches of the pack at one place, the bottom remained fairly hard, and presently it shallowed rapidly and Roger stood upon the farther shore. This time, however, the luck which seemed to have deserted him so long, returned, for he found himself, in the course of a few steps, just at the place where the brushwood had been cut recently for the making of a sight, and the boy knew that he could not now be very far from the rest of the party. He followed the blazed trail as rapidly as his somewhat crippled condition would permit, shouting occasionally as he did so, when suddenly he heard voices. Stopping to make sure, and hearing speech quite distinctly, he hurried on, coming at last to a dense dark piece of the wood through which a path had been hewn with some difficulty. Another two minutes, he was assured, would bring him among his comrades, when he heard the voices again, and what they said made him pause. "It's a good one on the boy," said one of the voices. Roger knew that he was always spoken of in camp as "the boy," and he thought if they were planning some practical joke on him, like the "snipe shoot," over which they had never ceased to tease him, there could be nothing wrong in listening so that he could checkmate it. "He must be quite near us, now," replied the other. "Almost as near," said the first speaker, "as he was when he first thought that he was lost. That was an awful howl he gave, the second one we heard. It would make a fair sample for an Atlantic liner's foghorn." Both men laughed, and the rich, easy voice of the chief of the party broke in. "I'm not sorry the boy got a scare," he said; "he's all right, is the boy, but he thinks he knows it all. They all do, at first. I told him not to go thirty yards away, and one way and another he must have gone a mile. It's a good thing he paralleled us, or somebody would have had to go after him." "I thought sure he'd find us right away when David called back," said the first speaker. "Yes," replied Field, "I thought so, too. But he didn't, you see. Now let him learn how hard it is to find a party in these swamps and he'll know better next time. You've got the location of his last call, haven't you?" "Sure!" said one of the men.