As he disappeared, he heard Skip neighing after him, and he felt very lonely and downhearted indeed.
He pushed his way through the briers and underbrush, sometimes sinking into the mud, and sometimes going splash into the water, without coming to any signs of a habitation, or any thing which could have caused the smoke. Finally, he was not sure that he was going in the direction of the smoke at all, as the trees hid it from his sight, and he resolved to return to Skip: perhaps, by trying again, they could find their way home, either by the paths they had come, or some other.
But now that he was resolved to go back to Skip, Rick was not sure of that direction either; and he had gone so far that he could not possibly hear the faithful creature neigh for his return.
Brave as the boy was, this dilemma, together with weariness, overcame him so much, that he sat down upon a rock and began to cry: perhaps he could never find his way out of this miry, tangled wood, and would die there alone. He thought of the babes in the wood, and that they were better off than he, since they could share each other's woes. If only Skip were with him! "Oh, dear!" he said, "if some one would only come and find me!"
"You have your wish, and what now?" said a rather cracked and sharp voice.
Rick took his hand from his eyes, and looked up. Directly in front of him was a thin, oldish woman, with gray hair, and very black eyes, dressed in what seemed to Rick a yellow satin skirt, richly embroidered, a red satin waist, and a sort of red turban. She was a very bright object in the dusky woods.
At another time Rick would have been frightened at such an apparition, alone in the woods; but, under the circumstances, he was more relieved than frightened at hearing a voice, and seeing what at first appeared to him to be a human form.
"You have your wish," she repeated, "and what now?"
"I want you to tell me how I can find my way home."
"The idea! Was Rick Lordelle ever willing to do any thing he was told to do, before he got into this scrape? Since you would never take good advice until this day, Master Rick, you may now do the best you can without it. Has not Nanette told you about the fairies in the woods?"