They had come out of the woods at the verge of a wide brook. Klyda gave a little start as she saw it, and lost her colour.
“Why, this is Snake Brook!” she cried. “Dick and I have been here a dozen times. But we’ve always come by way of the road. I didn’t know it was in this direction. I——”
“Well?” queried her brother. “Even at that, what’s the excitement? There’s nothing so very dramatic, is there, in coming upon Snake Brook? It’s——”
“It’s where Dick came to fish to-day,” said Klyda, her pallor increasing. “Jock has led us here, and——”
“And that’s the thrilling end of our quest?” interrupted her brother with a growl of disgust. “Jock got lonely for his master, and he’s dragged us through marsh and brambles, all this way, just for a sweet family reunion! Lord!”
“No,” contradicted Klyda, her voice not quite steady, “no! See, he hasn’t crossed the brook. He’s running along it, on this side. And now he’s stopped again for us to follow him. Come!”
She set off at a run along the pebbly and winding margin of the brook. Jock, as she started, wheeled again and vanished into a copse of shrubbery which ran down from a steep bank to the edge of the water.
Ten seconds later the two heard the collie’s voice upraised once more, this time in a quavering wolf-howl of anguish. And no longer did the undergrowth crackle at his charging progress. He had come to a halt somewhere.
“The cur’s stumbled into a hornets’ nest,” guyed the brother, laughing loudly to subdue a prickly feeling that ran along his spine at sound of that eerie cry.