"Send them out, too, to help in the search; we'll be sure to find her when the whole country gets to work. If I was down in the village I would have every man, woman and child in the woods, and wouldn't let them eat or drink or sleep till she's found. Tom, there's no one that knows the woods better than we and Nero. Let's be off!"
The door was drawn inward, and Jack Hansell was left alone. He lit his pipe, smoked it out, refilled it and was in the act of refilling it, when Harvey Bradley came in—as has been made known in another place. While the man sat smoking and alone in the cabin, he fell to brooding over the troubles at the mills. Thus it came to pass that his feelings were so bitter at the time the superintendent entered that he kept back every hint that the absent men were engaged in the most "honest" business in the world—that is, they were looking for the missing child.
Meanwhile Hugh and Tom went at the task not only with zeal, but with a sagacity that gave promise of good results. As Hugh had said, they knew every foot of the mountains for miles, they were free from the flurry that at first ran away with the judgment of the superintendent, and they were used to prowling through the woods. Still further Nero had been trained to follow the faintest footprints.
"Now, Tom," said the leader, when they had walked a short ways, "we can't do anything till we get on the trail of the little one."
"What do you think has become of her?"
"She's somewhere in the woods asleep or dead, with the chances about even for either."
"Jack says she was seen coming up the mountain path early this afternoon."
"Well, she has kept to it till she has either slipped out of the path without knowing it or she has done it on purpose. She has strolled along until it became dark or she was tired. Then she has lain down on the leaves and gone to sleep. Nero, find the trail of the little girl."
"But," said Tom, "the night is so cold."
"So it is, but if the girl went out to play she was well clad, and, if she knew enough, she has crept under the lee of a rock or into the bushes, where the wind can't reach her. If she did the same, she hasn't frozen to death."