“They are awfully big woods, Arthur,” Maida commented a little fearfully.
“But a gang of men working systematically,” Arthur explained, “could get through them in no time. Why the year my father and I camped out in Maine, there was a child lost in a forest a hundred times as big as this, but the whole village turned out and they found her in an hour.” Arthur did not add that the child was only three. He went on. “You see, little children can’t walk very fast. They are likely to go round in circles any way. And they soon get tired out. We shall probably find her asleep.”
“But if she’s fast asleep,” Maida remarked, “she can’t help us by answering our calls.”
To this Arthur answered, “Perhaps our calls will wake her.”
In the meantime, they searched every bit of ground thoroughly. At the foot of tree trunks, beside rocks, under bushes, Arthur thrust the rays of his electric flash-light. At intervals, he called to Maida and at intervals Maida called to him. It grew darker and darker.
“There, there’s the moon!” Arthur said in a relieved tone. “It’s going to help a good deal—having a full moon.” Following his pointing finger, Maida caught a faint, red glow through the trees. They searched a little longer.
“Arthur, I can barely hear the bell,” Maida exclaimed suddenly.
Arthur sighed. “I was just thinking of that,” he said. “I guess we’ll have to go back to the Little House and telephone the Big House.”
They turned and walked in the direction of the cow-bell. They were too preoccupied with the sense of their unhappiness to talk. Once only Maida said, “She’s one of the darlingest little girls I ever knew. If anything happened to Betsy—And then how could we tell her mother?”
When they came out on the lawn of the Little House, they found Floribel and Rosie sitting there. A minute later, Zeke and Harold appeared from one direction and, after an interval, Mrs. Dore and Dicky from another. They all had the same anxious, slightly-terrified look.