It was a long ride in rather a round-about way to the Buckham farm. Mr. Bob Buckham raised strawberries for market and was a good friend of the Corner House girls. Agnes particularly was a favorite of the farmer and his invalid wife.
Although the interurban car passed one end of the Buckham farm, there was another point where Agnes could leave the car to cut across lots and through the woods to reach the house. She had been this way once with Neale, and she thought it a much pleasanter, if somewhat longer, walk.
So, when the car came to the road in the woods which the Corner House girl was sure was the right one, she signaled the conductor to stop and she stepped down into the snow beside the track.
Agnes was to learn, however, that the woods look different under a blanket of snow, from what they do when the ground is bare.
The road into which she ventured was merely a track leading into a place where cordwood had been cut. Wagons had gone back and forth, but not for several days. The path led in a direction quite different from the Buckham house and every minute she walked this way took her farther and farther from the road to Strawberry Farm.
The air was invigorating, the sun shone, and the path was hard under her feet, so Agnes found the walk very pleasant indeed. Being quite unconscious of her mistake, nothing troubled her mind. She tramped on, rejoicing, expecting to come into familiar territory within a mile or so.
The forest grew thicker as she advanced. The only tracks she saw in the snow on either side of the wood road were those of birds and rabbits. Jays shot through the leafless woods shouting their raucous call; crows cawed in the distance; close at hand, squirrels chattered and scolded at her from the trees as she passed under the stark, bare branches.
Finally the impression was forced upon Agnes Kenway’s mind that the wood was very lonely. She heard no axe—and an axe can be heard for miles. She noticed, too, at length, that the tracks in the road—both of men and horses—were not fresh. She had not observed before that a light snow powdered these marks—and it had not snowed for three days.
“Why! can it be possible that nobody has been to Mr. Buckham’s by this road for so long?” murmured Agnes.
She turned around to look behind her. As she did so some creature—quite a big and shaggy animal—darted across the path and disappeared in the brush.