It was by this cry that Ruth, with the others following her, was able to get to the place whence Dot had sounded the alarm. Ruth saw her little sister through a fringe of bushes on the edge of the brook.
“Dot, what is it? Where is Tess?” demanded Ruth, not stopping to inquire whether Tess had fallen in, since it seemed obvious, with Dot there in plain sight, and not wet.
“I don’t know!” sobbed Dot.
“What don’t you know?” demanded Agnes, catching Dot by the arm and giving her a little shake to quiet the hysterical sobbing that was rendering Dot unintelligible.
“I don’t know where Tess is,” Dot sobbed. “She went down there with her Clarissa-doll——” She pointed toward a part of the stream that the boys knew to be deep, and went on: “Then I heard her yell and there was a splash and——Oh, she’s fallen in, I know she has!”
The boys waited no longer, but dashed away in the direction of the spot Dot had pointed out. Agnes and Nalbro remained to comfort Dot, who was now wiping away her tears on the dress of her Alice-doll, and Ruth followed the boys.
It was Luke who first shouted back some definite news.
“I have found her!” he announced.
“Is she—is she——” Ruth could not form the words.
“She’s all right!” came the reassuring answer. “But she’s soaking wet. Tess, come out of that!” he commanded.