“I don’t see where they could have gone to,” complained Dot, tired at last of carrying both the Alice-doll and her flowers so far.
“I didn’t s’pose we’d come so far from that road,” agreed Tess.
“Oh, I see it!” Dot cried, suddenly.
“The auto?”
“No, no! The road.”
“Oh,” said Tess, gladly. “Then we’ll find them now.”
The little girls climbed down a bank into a road which—had they known it—would have taken them out into the more important highway the motorcar was on. But unfortunately Tess and Dot turned in the wrong direction. They kept on walking away from their friends.
Had they not done this, or had they sat down and waited, Neale O’Neil and Tom Jonah would have found them in time; for they searched the patch of woods clear to this back road before returning, hopelessly, to the automobile to report their failure.
However, Tess and Dot walked and walked, until they really could walk no farther without resting. And then, having been absent from their friends for fully three hours, they had to sit down.
Dot cried a bit and Tess put her arms about her and tried to comfort the smallest Corner House girl. They had both long since thrown their flowers away, for the blossoms had wilted.