"Go round to the dogs, Bruin," she said, "and tell them to be quiet, and then come back to me. Go quickly."
The deerhound licked his mistress's hand, and then trotted in sober, solemn fashion round by the shrubbery and disappeared.
The girl and the boys waited anxiously. Not a dog bayed, not a sound of any sort was audible. Bruin trod on the velvety turf as he returned. He looked up at Bridget, who bent down and kissed him between the eyes.
"Good King!" she said, and then she and the boys started off as fast as they could to the Hogans' cottage, where Norah might possibly be sleeping.
No sign of her there; no tidings of her, either. Hogan got up and put out a white face of amazement from one of the tiny windows of the cottage when Bridget made her demand. If he knew anything of Norah's whereabouts, neither face nor manner betrayed him.
"It's no good, boys," said Bridget, "she is not there; or if she is, Hogan has got the word not to tell. We might stand and talk to him forever before he'd let even a wink of an eye betray him. There is nothing whatever for it but for us to go to the cottage on the mountains."
Gerry was quite silent now. He took care to keep Bridget between himself and Pat, and no one particularly noticed when he started at his own shadow, and when he looked guiltily behind.
Even to ride on horseback to Donovan's cabin, in the midst of the lonely mountains, took a long time; but to walk on foot in the uncertain moonlight was truly a weary undertaking.
It was between three and four in the morning when the children, exhausted and almost spent, stumbled up against the little cabin, to find the door locked and the house deserted.