“Well—well, this one isn’t,” said Sammy, pointing at Rowdy. “He’s a girl, that’s what he is.”
“Why, Rowdy! I thought there was something funny about you,” Tess Kenway said. “You—you were so much nicer than boys are. I declare!”
But this point was discussed no further at the time. For into the entrance to the cave came tumbling Neale O’Neil and Luke Shepard, covered with snow and shouting their joy, while behind them was Ike M’Graw.
“Ralph! Roweny!” shouted the old timber cruiser. “Jest what sort of doin’s do you call this?”
Neale and Luke greeted the three lost Milton children with vehemence. Afterward Sammy confessed that maybe it was a good thing to get lost, for then you found out how much folks thought of you.
These three, with Tom Jonah, made up the searching party this time. They had come away from Red Deer Lodge without letting the others know where they were going.
It was really Agnes who started them off on the right trail. While the gale still rocked Red Deer Lodge in its arms and nobody could go out of doors, Agnes remembered about the fork in the road where she and her friends had coasted.
“If the little ones tried to slide, they might have taken that wrong road,” she said. “They could have slid right into it without knowing. Where does it go, Mr. M’Graw?”
It did not take Ike long to study out what she meant. Then he did some more “figgering.” He knew exactly where the branch road led to.
He was so successful in this figuring that he encouraged the young people from Milton to believe as he did. He saw a chance for the three little folks who had gone sliding to be safely housed in the cave that he called “Ralph and little Missie’s playhouse.”