At last they came to a point where they got a glimpse of the valley lying west of the mountain. The land-marks were familiar, only it seemed as though north and south had changed places, Mrs Stone said. Another attempt brought them back to the place where they had found the broken branches, and they had fancied themselves going in the other direction.
“Well, there! I guess we’d better sit down till some one comes to find us. Not that we are lost. I never heard yet of any one being lost on Shattuck Peak for more than an hour or two. Why didn’t I think of it before, dear? Are you too hungry and tired to sing, Fidelia? I shouldn’t wonder if they were beginning to worry about us up there. They’ll be listening.”
Fidelia clambered a little higher, and sang “The Star-spangled Banner,” smiling a little at the thought of the time when she sang it with the boys on Eastwood Hill. She wondered that she had not thought of lifting up her voice sooner.
But nothing came of it. Fidelia amused herself gathering some late flowers, and in searching about for other wild wood treasures, and then she sang again, and listened for an answering voice; but she listened in vain.
“I expect we are lost for the time being,” said Mrs Stone composedly. “We’d as well make the best of it, and see what we can do to pass the time. I wish I had brought my knitting. They’ll miss us pretty soon, and come to find us.”
“Tell me about the last time you were on the mountain,” said Fidelia.
“To pass the time? Well, that may do as well as anything. But it isn’t much of a story, and what is of it is not very pleasant to tell or to hear.”
The telling of that story involved the telling of much more; but there was time enough, before an answer came to Fidelia’s next song, for all Mrs Stone had to tell.