ANDOVER – Another pair of hunters turned up Friday after going missing, bringing the total number of searches for lost hunters to 24 for the year in Maine.

Game Warden Josh Smith says two brothers, 69-year-old Roger Day of Rumford and 68-year-old David Day of Norway, were tracking a deer after shooting it in the Andover area when night fell. When they failed to return home, wardens launched a search that continued until 2 a.m.

Searchers were prepared to resume at first light when one of the men contacted authorities to say they had made it safely out of the woods.

Inland Fisheries and Wildlife spokeswoman Deborah Turcotte says it was the second time this week that one of the brothers had become lost while hunting.