"I shouldn't like to have the children meet him," said the man.
"Be still!" commanded his companion, "do ye want Square Weston ter hear ye? He's 'nough worried now without yer tales er bears an' drowndings."
As Mr. Weston passed them, his lantern revealed the pallor of his face, and one man muttered to the other,
"Ef they're not ter be faound alive, then I hope it'll not be the Square that finds 'em."
"That's so, man," the other returned, "'tho' it would be a hard job fer any of us ter larn that aught had befallen little Prue, and even that little scamp, Hi Babson, I'd hate ter think of a hard fate fer him, he was so brimmin' over with fun."
One man had strayed from the party, and with his torch held above his head was slowly making his way through the underbrush, when, emerging from the thicket, his foot touched something which but softly resisted it. Thinking it to be some old and mossy log, he shifted his torch to the other hand, and was preparing to step over the obstacle whatever it might be, when, as the smoke blew backward, the flaming torch revealed the sleeping children, Prue still holding Randy's letter in her hand, Hi with a protecting arm about his little companion.
As the smoke flew backward the flaming torch revealed the sleeping children
"Well, of all the pretty sights!" he ejaculated. "Safe an' saound an' warm I'll bet ye, but haow on airth come they over here?"