"What! Do you really mean to say you can't find it?" questioned Frank.
"Help me look, fellows. Oh! my heart will be broken if it's true. I was just dreaming of what great things I meant to do with that splendid repeating shotgun. Please search around the camp!" pleaded Bluff.
Of course they immediately started a thorough hunt for the strangely missing weapon, even the limping Jerry seeming as deeply interested in the search as any one of his comrades.
High and low they looked, turning over all the blankets in the tents, but not a sign of the wonderful "pump-gun" could they discover.
The other guns were just where they had been left, and so far as they could see not another thing had been stolen.
"I declare, this is mighty queer," remarked Frank, when they were ready to give over the quest.
"Strangest thing I ever heard of," declared Will.
"Talk about your airships, I think the blooming old thing must have taken wings and sailed away," grunted Jerry, still rubbing his wounded shin sympathetically.
"But why should they pick out Bluff's gun of the lot?" demanded Frank.
