“H’m, so did I,” Betty agreed, “but I didn’t think she’d do it as well as this.”
The shadows of the trees lengthening out over the rich black ground gave warning of the approaching sunset.
The hounds looked puzzled.
“Perhaps they have been doubling on the trail, and we’ve been chasing them around the circle—I say let’s go back the way we came, perhaps we’ll meet them,” suggested Connie.
They all thought this a likely solution, and in a
minute they were again in marching order, ready to retrace their steps.
Connie’s conjecture was quite true, as far as it went—that was, however, not quite far enough to reach the hares.
Polly, to whom all woods were an open book, once out of sight of the gym, had found her way by various paths to the orchard and, by keeping to the right she discovered the bridge.
“What a piece of luck,” she exclaimed to the girls who were running beside her, adding, in explanation:
“If we can only make a circle and come back here, they will never find us—we can stand under the bridge, the brook’s almost dry and there are loads of stones.”