Carefully she pushed back the brambles. Then she called softly, as to some animal.
The answer came. It was a faint bark! A dog surely. She glanced up to the stable, to see if Jake was still there so that she might call him; but he had gone.
Then she whistled the call for a dog, but could see nothing but a movement of the briars.
“He must be in there,” she told herself, “and I will have to crawl in and get him. Something must have him fast.”
Tucking her skirts about her as best she could, she raised bush after bush, until she was well within the hedge. Then she could see where the sound came from.
It was under a hawthorn!
She raised that, and there beheld little Ravelings!
“Oh, you poor little thing!” she said aloud. “How ever did you get there?”
In spite of her anxiety that the precious animal might be injured, it must be admitted that Dorothy was glad to see him.
Now she would have to tell nothing to Jacob. She would just hand him his dog.