The boys were in too high spirits, however, to try to explain that which puzzled them. The cow was a valuable creature, being the only one that belonged to the family with whom Terence lived, and who therefore could ill afford her loss.
The friends had pushed perhaps a couple hundred yards further when Terry called to Fred that he was not following the right course.
"Ye're bearing too much to the lift; so much so indaad that if ye kaap on ye'll find yersilf lift."
"Why, I was about to turn a little more in that direction," replied the astonished Fred; "you are altogether wrong."
But the other sturdily insisted that he was right, and he was so positive that he stopped short, and refused to go another step in the direction that his friend was following. The latter was just as certain that Terry was amiss, and it looked as if they had come to a deadlock.
"There's only one way to settle it," said Fred, "and that is for each of us to follow the route he thinks right. The cow can't be far off and we shall soon find out who is wrong. The first one that finds Brindle shall call to the other, and he'll own up what a stupid blunder he has made."
"Ye are speakin' me own sentiments," replied Terry, who kept looking about him and listening as if he expected every moment that the cow herself would solve the question. Fred Linden read the meaning of his action, and he, too, wondered why it was that when both had plainly caught the tinkle of the telltale bell, they should hear it no more. Strange that when it had spoken so clearly it should become silent, but such was the fact.
Little did either suspect the cause.