“But it does,” said Nimbus, “whether you see it or not. After they grew and blossomed somebody came and picked lots of them. You can see where they have been snipped off.”
“Well?” said Jack Frost.
“It must have been the Evening Star,” continued Nimbus. “She’s very fond of flowers, you know, and nobody else could get here.”
“Humph!” said Jack Frost; “there may be something in that. But whether there is or not, I must rebuild this glacier, or at least start it. I’ll begin by cutting down these flowers.”
“Oh, please don’t!” said Billy. “They look so pretty here among the snowdrifts. Let them just stay for a while anyway.”
“All right,” said Jack Frost, “for a while, if it will please you. But I want you to understand that they are in the way of the loveliest glacier that——”
“Never mind your glacier,” shouted Nimbus. “I’ve found the track of the Evening Star, and she is going east instead of north.”
He had climbed up a crevice in one of the ice cliffs and was studying the surface of a thin covering of new-fallen snow.
There before him were the dainty footprints of the Evening Star, and here and there a blossom apparently fallen from her bouquet lay scattered along the tracks.
“Now,” said Nimbus, “we will separate. Billy, you and I will go after the Evening Star, and you, Jack Frost, can follow the open trail of the Equator and see if you can find him. If you do find him, be sure not to let him get away.”