"Yes," said Rob: "I bet you any thing it is. Let's go right up there now, and see if we can find some rock like this. I'll carry this piece in my pocket to tell by. I'll only borrow it: I'll put it back."
"Let me carry it then," said Nelly. "I'm so afraid you'll lose it."
So Nelly tied the little bit of gray rock in a corner of her pocket-handkerchief, and then crammed her handkerchief down tight in her pocket, and they set off at a swift pace, towards the ravine where Molly had had her unlucky fall.
When dinner-time came, the children were nowhere to be found. Zeb went up and down the brook for a mile, looking and calling aloud. Watch and Trotter had both disappeared also.
"Ye needn't worry so long's the dogs is along, ma'am," said Zeb, when he returned from his bootless search. "If they get into any trouble, Watch'll come home and let us know. He's got more sense'n most men, that dog has."
But Mrs. March could not help worrying. Never since they had lived in the Pass had Nelly and Rob gone away for any long walk without coming and bidding her good-by, and telling her where they were going. The truth was, that this time they had entirely forgotten it: they were so excited by the hopes of finding a mine. They had walked nearly a mile when Nelly suddenly exclaimed: "Oh, Rob! we didn't say good-by to mamma! She won't know where we are."
"So we didn't!" said Rob. "What a shame! But we can't go back now, Nell: it's too late; we've come miles and miles; we'd better keep on; she'll know we're all right; we always are. We're most there now."
It was the middle of the afternoon before Rob and Nelly got home. Mrs. March had been walking up and down the road anxiously for an hour, when she saw the two little figures coming down the very steepest of the hills. They walked very slowly; so slowly that she felt sure one of them must be hurt. The dogs were bounding along before them. As soon as the children saw their mother, Rob took off his hat, and Nelly her sun-bonnet, and waved them in the air. This relieved Mrs. March's fears, and the tears came into her eyes, she was so glad. "Oh, Robert, there they are!" she exclaimed to Mr. March, who had just joined her. "See! there they are, way up on that steep hill. Thank God, they are safe!"
Mr. and Mrs. March both stood in the road, shading their eyes with their hands, and looking up at the children.
As they drew nearer, Mrs. March exclaimed: "Why, what are they carrying?" Mr. March burst out laughing, and said: "They look like little pack mules." In a few minutes, the hot, tired, dusty little wanderers reached the road, and ran breathlessly up to their father and mother: