At last came the answer from one mountain farm, “blanked out”, at first, by a whining in the set.
“Bah! like chickens squealing—that tube-howling!” she murmured restively to herself—and dropped her head, with a dry sob, upon her receiver, for she remembered how Una had once laughed at that simile.
But the air had played true. Her call had gone home, home to hearts among the Green Mountains. That young farmer had not even a telephone. Radio was his one ear, listening afar to the world’s pulse. “Mr. Grosvenor’s daughter—only daughter!” He flung himself upon a tired farmhorse. A new Revere, he galloped to the next farm—to the lonely one beyond that. He held up every belated pedestrian.
Among these mountaineers whom the lost girl had entertained at her flower party, were strugglers whom her father, out of his munificence, had helped; now, it was a loan obtained on easy terms for one who wanted to fight Nature for a farm and oust the “growing” rocks with backaches, again it was a mortgage paid up on the eve of foreclosure. “We’ll find his daughter, for him, if she’s above ground,” so stern men pledged themselves.
And, here and there, the mountains burned with lights, following upon that call of the air.
But, as yet, no signal had been sent up to say that she was found.
During the earlier part of the night, following upon the arrival of Sanbie and his lantern, Guardian and girls had sought up and down, but without a clue. Una was not in camp. She was nowhere. Girl and horse had vanished in the darkness as if the mountain swallowed them.
“Perhaps she got distracted with the excitement—the terror—of the fire and started to ride home—all that distance,” suggested one and another of the girls blankly.
Pemrose shook her head: “Never! She never would have done that. Una is timid and fanciful, doesn’t depend on herself very much—has never depended on herself—but to ride off, and leave me—us—in danger fighting fire....” The girl shook her dew-wet head again, choking.
And the Camp Fire sisters admitted that her play-marrow, heart of her heart, knew her best.