"Emma."
"I'd love to go." Grace hesitated. "Do you think it would be disloyal in me to leave Oakdale now, even for a day? I thought it over seriously before I went to Miriam's wedding. That was really a duty, you know. But since Jean has taken up Tom's case, it seems as though I am likely to hear something important within a few days."
"You mustn't be too sure," counseled Elfreda wisely. "You might be disappointed. It may take even Jean a long time to find out anything. I'm not saying that to be cruel."
"You don't need to tell me that. I know I mustn't expect too much, even of Jean. Yet I can't help thinking that if he doesn't find Tom, no one else ever will."
CHAPTER XXI
THE CALL OF THE ELF'S HORN
Jean, however, had no intention of failing those who so strongly relied upon him. He approached his difficult task with a confidence in his own powers which long years of the free, independent life of the great outdoors had given him. He knew the secrets of the wilderness as few men knew them. He had little doubt that much which had remained obscure to those already engaged in the search for Tom Gray would be made clear to him. Alone in the world, Jean had long since come to regard the Eight Originals as "his folks." Of the four girls, Grace Harlowe had always been his favorite. Of the four boys, Tom Gray had held first place in his heart. The young man's frank, delightful personality, coupled with his intense love of Nature, had served signally to endear him to the old hunter.
As Jean had reverently assured Grace, it was indeed, to him, a sacred mission on which he was now setting forth, and he longed impatiently for the moment to come when he might leave the narrow confines of the railway train and set foot in the little village nearest to the lumber camp. Mrs. Gray had insisted on providing him liberally with the funds she deemed necessary for the continuance of the search. Jean had stoutly protested against this liberality. Overruled, he had given in somewhat reluctantly, consoling himself with the thought that when M'sieu' Tom was found he would give back the greater part of the money which had been thus thrust upon him. His sturdy soul rose in revolt at the very idea of tucking himself away in a Pullman berth, even for a night. Such cubby-holes were not for him, he disdainfully reflected. He preferred to sit up all night and amuse himself by watching the fleeting, indistinct landscape through which the train was pursuing its steady run toward the vast northern region that jealously concealed the mystery of Tom Gray's fate.
As he had already informed Grace and Mrs. Gray, the territory for which he was bound was to him a fairly familiar one. True he had not hunted in it for several years, although once or twice he had skirted it in making his slow, deliberate marches to and from Canada. He assured himself that naturally he would discover some changes in the heavy forest growth, stretching for many miles north and west of the lumber camp for which Tom Gray had headed. Yet Jean was not in the least dismayed by the magnitude of his task. More than once he had served as tracer of persons lost in the trackless wildernesses. More than once he had wandered about in the dense, pathless forests, a lost man.