Said the mistress, in vast relief:
“I might have known. I might have guessed. He a mischievous tease, she a wild, impulsive child.” Then she hurried to poor Auntie Lu, sitting disconsolate beside the well with Dorothy clasping her hand in her own small ones, trying to comfort as best she could, and exclaimed: “Fear no more! We should have thought at once the prank that madcap would be at! She saw Anton ride away to the camp and she has followed him. The maid who was ill remembers. She is safe with her father long before this. Come in by, now, come in and have a cup of tea. A cup of tea will set you up again like anything.”
Aunt Lu was greatly cheered but it took more than the other’s panacea of a “cup of tea” to banish all anxiety; yet in the hope that had been raised she passed the remainder of that dreadful day as calmly as she could and without burdening others with the fear which still lingered in her heart.
Upon his wife’s report the farmer left off prying into all the home places and saddled his fleetest horse. He sent all the men back to the fields to house the abandoned hay machines and rusting ploughs, and to attend the many duties of so great a farm. But he took one man with him and a “snack” of supper in their pockets. It would be a long ride there and back and a detour might be necessary. Wherever he found sign of the child’s wandering, should she by chance have lost the trail of Anton, whom she followed, he would keep to the signs and not the shortest route. Many a place there was, of course, where even the surest-footed horse could not travel, and only a foot passage be made with difficulty.
But he rode round to Auntie Lu, now coaxed within doors to an open window, and cheerily bade her:
“Keep stout heart, my woman dear. When you see my grizzled face again you shall see your Molly’s bonny one beside it. I’m a Grimm. I mean it.”
Then he bared his gray head, settled himself firmly in his saddle, called to his man: “Come on!” and rode as gallantly to the rescue as if his seventy winters had been no more than seventeen.
All this time where was Molly?
When she found that Anton had disappeared from that open spot in the forest she was at first terrified then comforted.
“Why, I reckon this must be mighty near that camp, after all. It’s ’most clear of the little trees and bushes, like some of the farm-groves that anybody can play in and not be scared or—or get their dresses torn. Queenie, you and I can rest a few minutes. Somehow I’m dreadful tired. I rode such a lot all morning and now away out here after that Anton. He’s mean. He surely is dreadful ornery. When I see him again I’ll just hold my head mighty high and take no notice. Indians aren’t much better than negroes, I reckon. Anyhow he isn’t half so nice. Catch one of our black ‘boys’ treating ‘little missy’ so! You hungry, too, Queenie? Well, you’re luckier than I for you can get your dinner off the ground. Go ahead and nibble it. I’ll wait for you;” she said, talking to the sorrel as if she were human and could understand, and slipping from her saddle to the ground.