"What better can we do?" asked Mr. Kilgore.
"Thus far we have been forced to confine ourselves to the road, excepting when we diverge a few feet: this renders our work about the same as if done by a single person. What I propose, therefore, is that we separate."
"How will that help us?"
"It may not, but we shall cover three or four times the amount of space (I judge Mrs. Ribsam would prefer to remain with her husband and son on account of the single lantern), and it follows that some one of us must pass closer to the spot where Nellie is lying."
This seemed a sensible suggestion, and the two men turned to the afflicted father to learn what he thought of it.
He shook his head.
"Not yet,—not yet; we goes a leetle furder."
Nothing was added by way of explanation, and yet even little Nick knew why he had protested: he wished that all might keep together until they reached the creek. If nothing was learned of his child there, then he would follow the plan of the teacher.
But something seemed to whisper to the parent that the place where they would gain tidings of little Nellie was near that dark, flowing water, which, like such streams, seemed to be always reaching out for some one to strangle in its depths.
"Perhaps Mr. Ribsam is right," said the teacher, after a silence which was oppressive even though brief; "we will keep each other's company, for it is lonely work tramping through the woods, where there is no beaten path to follow."