"The dogs, all except Luffree, came home. If she has returned when you read this, fire a musket."
They stood in a circle and looked blankly at one another. For it had not crossed their minds that the little girl was not home, but somewhere out on the prairie, tied to a pinto, and all alone in the dark.
Without waiting to snatch a bite from the table, they started off to search, leaving their jaded horses in the barn. The eldest brother went straight for the river, which he meant to follow, and took a musket with him; the youngest ran off up the path between the corn and the wheat, and carried the cow-horn; while the biggest made for the carnelian bluff, taking neither gun nor horn, but relying on his lungs to carry any good news to the others. And behind them, as they hurried, sounded the baying of the St. Bernard, ignominiously chained to a stake by the kitchen door.
The evening wore on. Overhead the low-hanging clouds covered the moonless sky like a hood, and not a star shone through the fleecy thickness to aid in the search for the little girl. At a late hour it began to sprinkle again, and, though no sound of shot or blast had broken the silence of the prairie, one by one the anxious hunters came straggling home, dumbly ate, and waited for the morning.
The little girl's mother, sitting behind the stove, cried heartbrokenly. "If my poor baby ever comes back alive," she sobbed, "she shall have her birthday in June and the best present I can get her." And all the big brothers silently assented.
But while they were gathered thus, drying their damp clothes, the biggest brother suddenly sprang up with a joyful cry.
"Why didn't we think of it before?" he said—"the St. Bernard!"
A moment later he was freeing the big dog, and his mother, lantern in hand, was holding a little gingham dress against his muzzle.
"Find her! Find her!" she commanded. "Go, go! Find her!"
The St. Bernard shook himself free of the chain that had bound him, looked into the faces that peered at him through the dim lantern-light, and then, giving a long sniff, proud, human, and contemptuous, walked slowly and majestically toward the sod barn. The family followed wonderingly.