When the train first stopped and the brakeman announced the accident ahead, the woman had spoken to the girl and they both had risen and left the car. Perhaps nobody had noticed them but Ruth. The strange girl had not looked at Ruth when she passed her, but the woman had bowed and smiled in a cat-like fashion.
Pearl said they would follow a path through the timber to the road; and she pointed out the direction through the window. Ruth saw the woman and girl strike into this very path and disappear.
So curiosity, too, led the oldest Corner House girl to agree to Pearl’s plan. The party of ten girls, including Ruth, Agnes, Tess and Dot Kenway, slipped out of the car without being questioned by any of the older people there. Nobody observed them enter the cool and fragrant woods. Chattering and laughing, they were quickly in the shadowy depths and out of sight of the hot train.
“Oh, isn’t this heavenly!” cried Agnes, tossing up her hat by the ribbons that were supposed to tie it under her plump chin.
The green tunnel of the wood-path stretched a long way before them. It was paved with pine needles and last-year’s oak leaves.
Ruth looked sharply ahead, but did not see either the woman or the girl, in whom she was so much interested. Either they had gone on very rapidly, or had turned aside into the wood.
Dot had made no complaint upon being forced to leave the train; but she clung very tightly now to the Alice-doll, and finally ventured to ask Tess:
“What—what do you think is the chance for bears in this wood, Tess? Don’t you think there may be some?”
“Bears? Whoever heard the like? Of course not, child,” said Tess, in her most elder-sisterly way. “What gave you such an idea as that?”
“Well—it’s a strange woods, Tess. We aren’t really acquainted here.”