“I think it must have rolled into some little hole, perhaps, and have been covered over. Or you may have pressed your hand or foot on it and thrust it into the sand. The children can help look now.”
“I know how to do it,” declared Janet. “You must pick up a little sand at a time and then put it down in another place, if you don’t find the ring.”
“That’s the idea,” Mr. Keller told the little Curlytop girl. “If you put the sand you take up back in the same place, you can’t tell where it is in a few minutes, and you’ll be going over the same sand twice.”
“We ought to mark off this place with stones or sticks or something,” suggested Ted.
“What for?” his sister wanted to know.
“So we would remember where it is,” Ted answered. “Once when we came to the seashore before, I lost a rubber ball, and I couldn’t find it. The coast guard told me to put some sticks up near the place I lost it, and look the next day.”
“Did you find your ball?” asked Mrs. Keller, who was now stooping down, picking up handfuls of sand and letting it run through her fingers again.
“Yes, I found it,” Ted answered.
“I think his idea is a good one,” remarked Mr. Keller. “We may not find this ring to-day, and we may have to search to-morrow. It is hard to come back to the same place on the sand unless you mark it in some way. All sand looks alike.”
“I’ll get some sticks and stones,” offered Ted.