UNCLE RUFUS' STORY OF THE CHRISTMAS GOOSE
"Trix is going to stay all night with Carrie. If we go back she will only laugh at us," Ruth Kenway said, decidedly.
"We-ell," sighed Agnes. "I don't want to give that mean thing a chance to laugh. We can't really get lost out here, can we, Neale?"
"I don't see how we can," said Neale, slowly. "I'm game to go ahead if you girls are."
"It looks to me just as bad to go back," Ruth observed.
"Come on!" cried Agnes, and started forward again through the snow.
And, really, they might just as well keep on as to go back. They must be half way to the edge of Milton by this time, all three were sure.
The "swish, swish, swish" of the slanting snow was all they heard save their own voices. The falling particles deadened all sound, and they might have been alone in a wilderness as far as the presence of other human beings was made known to them.
"Say!" grumbled Neale, "she said there was a brook here somewhere—at the bottom of a hollow."
"Well, we've been going down hill for some time," Ruth remarked. "It must be near by now."