“Well, let’s see if it wakes up Tess and Dot,” laughed Neale O’Neil. “Come on, Aggie, let you and me run and find them.”
“Don’t get lost yourselves,” Ruth called after them, laughing now.
After being startled for the moment by Sammy’s report, all of them felt it was really impossible that Tess and Dot should be lost.
Neale and Agnes, with Tom Jonah in pursuit, ran over the slight rise out of sight, hand in hand and laughing, like the children they were themselves. They came to the fence and looked through it.
“Of course, that’s where they are,” Agnes said. “Do look at the flowers, Neale.”
“They must have gone on down the hill,” the boy agreed, and he and Agnes crept through the fence, on the trail of Tess and Dot.
They saw no trace of the children at first. And the mild-eyed cow that had caused all the trouble had disappeared. After a while Agnes cried out: “Oh, Neale! They picked flowers here. See the broken stalks!”
“Sure,” he agreed. “Let’s shout for them.”
Again and again they shouted the little girls’ names—singly and in unison.
“Where could they have gone—not to hear us?” demanded Agnes.