The grandmother could bear no more in silence. She rose from the table, her eyes flashing with indignation.
"Stop, neighbor, for pity's sake!" she protested. "I know Rico very well. Ever since the father brought him here I have seen him almost constantly. Instead of saying harsh things about the child remember what danger he may be in this very minute. Don't you suppose that he may also have some reason to complain?"
The aunt had been thinking all day of Rico's words, "I will take myself out of your way," and trying to justify her own position. Now the grandmother's rebuke made her ashamed. "I will go back," she said, as she stepped out into the dark field. "Rico may have come home while I have been standing here." In her heart she knew that she would be glad to find this true, but the little house was empty and still.
Early the next morning the neighbors set forth to search carefully in the ravines and along the approaches to the glacier. When Stineli's father noticed that she had followed the others he said, "That is right, Stineli; you can get into places where bigger folk could not go."
"But, father," said Stineli, "if Rico went up the road he couldn't have fallen into any such place, could he?"
"Of course he could!" said the father. "He was such a dreamer that it would have been easy enough for him to lose his way. He probably paid no attention to where he was going, and wandered off toward the mountains."
A great fear entered Stineli's heart when she heard this. For days she could scarcely eat or sleep and she went listlessly about her work as if she did not know what she was doing.
No one could be found who had seen Rico since the night he left home. As time went on he was given up for dead. The neighbors tried to console one another by saying: "He is better off as it is. The child had no one to look after him properly."