There was a moment's pause. Then, the Mistress spoke again. Her voice slightly muffled, she said:
"Please find out if there is plenty of gas in my car;—enough to take it—say, forty miles. Thank you."
"What on earth—?" began the Master, as his wife left the telephone and picked up an ulster.
"Laddie didn't come home on the truck," she made tremulous reply. "And he wasn't with us. He hasn't come home all."
"He'll find his way, easily enough," returned the Master, albeit with no great assurance. "Lad's found his way farther than that. He—"
"If he was going to find his way," interrupted the Mistress, "he'd have found it before now. I know Laddie. So do you. He is up there. And he can't get back. He—"
"Nonsense!" laughed the Master. "Why, of course, he—"
"He is up there," insisted the Mistress, "and he can't get back. I know him well enough to be, sure he'd have overtaken us, when we stopped all those times to fix the tires;—if he had been left behind. And I know something else: When we started on, after that first puncture, we were about half a mile below the knoll. And as we went around the bend, there was a gap in the trees. I was looking back. For a second, I could see the lean-to, outlined ever so clearly against the sky. And alongside of it was standing some animal. It was far away; and we passed out of sight so suddenly, that I couldn't see what it was; except that it was large and dark. And it seemed to be struggling to move from where it stood. I was going to speak to you about it,—I supposed it was that black bear of Laddie's,—when we had the next puncture. And that made me forget all about it;—till now. Of course, it never occurred to me it could be Lad. Because Barret had said he was in the truck. But—but oh, it WAS Laddie! He—he was fastened, or caught, in some way. I know he was. Why, I could see him struggle to—"
"Come on!" broke in the Master, hustling into his mackinaw. "Unless you'll stay here, while I—"
"No," she protested. "I'm going. And I'm going because I'm thinking of the same thing that's troubling you. I'm thinking of those forest fires and of what you said about the wind changing and—"