“What is it?” asked Dorothy worriedly. “What has happened to him?”
Joe said never a word, but hastened along the bank of the gully. They could scarcely distinguish the line of the bank in some places and right at the very steepest part was a wallow in the snow. Something had sunk down there and the snow had caved in after it!
“Roger!” gasped Dorothy, her heart beating fast and the muscles of her throat tightening.
“Oh, cricky!” groaned Joe. “He’s gone down.”
It was the steepest and deepest part of the gully. Not a sound came up from the huge drift into which the smaller boy had evidently tumbled—no answer to their cries.
Dorothy and her brothers had scarcely gone out of sight of the house when Major Dale, looking from the broad front window of his room, beheld a figure plowing through the heaped up snow and in at the gateway of The Cedars. It was not Nat and it was not Ned; at first he did not recognize the man approaching the front door at all.
Then he suddenly uttered a shout which brought the housemaid from her dusting in the hall.
“Major Dale! what is it, please? Can I do anything for you?” asked the girl, her hand upon her heart.
“Great glory! did I scare you, Mina?” he demanded. “Well! I’m pretty near scared myself. Leastways, I am amazed. Run down and open the door for Mr. Knapp—and bring him right up here.”