Deforrest Young was trying to calm his sister. Her frantic cries for her baby contrasted strangely with the icy despair of the other mother he'd tried to comfort. His heart, still sore from Boy's loss, bled in ready sympathy to his sister's mourning. He grasped Helen's hands which were tearing her hair.
"Don't!" he said. "We'll find her soon. By morning she'll be back home again. Ebenezer has nearly every man around looking for her, ... searching every barn and asking at every house.... Darling, do you think you could stay here with Madelene and let me go out, too?"
"Yes, yes, go, but Oh, God, I shall die if you don't find her!"
Hour after hour men on horseback and men on foot hunted through the hills and gullies for little Elsie Waldstricker.
It was almost twelve, when one by one Ebenezer's friends rode sorrowfully home after a useless search.