Dick was leaning over Esther urging her to let him take her into the village, where a carriage was in waiting to drive any one of them who might have news, back to Mrs. Ashton and Miss Adams, who were still together at the cottage. Carl von Reuter happened to be standing close to Polly, but he was not speaking to her nor observing her. All through the evening he had seemed as anxious and interested about Betty as her brother and even more nonplussed at their inability to find any trace of her; because, of course, he knew so thoroughly well every inch of ground in the surrounding country and had also called in his servants from the castle to assist in the search.
Suddenly Polly clutched at the young lieutenant's arm. She had risen unexpectedly to her feet and was pointing ahead apparently at nothing so far as her companions could see.
The night had been dark and cloudy, the atmosphere sultry with suggestions of a September storm. Therefore the task of finding Betty, should she be out of doors, had been the more difficult and the more imperative.
"Look, Esther," Polly called sharply, "there over in the woods toward the west. Do you see anything?"
Esther had gotten up on her feet more slowly and was leaning on Dick Ashton's arm. She had become weary of false clues and false hopes. And Polly with her sanguine temperament had been more often deceived than any one else.
"That is only a mist you see rising between the trees, Miss O'Neill," Carl von Reuter answered before the others spoke. "It very often occurs in these damp old forests on sultry nights."
Polly made no reply for the moment, only walking over to where Esther was standing she whispered something to her that no one else could hear. And Esther took tight hold of Polly's hand and without regarding their escorts they both stared unceasingly in the direction that Polly had first indicated. Were the light clouds they saw at so great a distance away, rising and floating lightly in the night air like pale ghosts, really nothing but mist? Then it was curious that the mist should rise always in double clouds, the one within a few feet of the other.
A second time the two girls together watched this phenomenon and then after an interval of ten minutes, during which neither one of them would change her position, for the third time they saw the two light clouds unfurl and this time, though they may not have been perfectly certain of this detail, there appeared tiny sparks and cinders amid the clouds.
Polly turned deliberately toward Carl von Renter. "Lieutenant von Reuter," she said, "Betty is somewhere within your woods. I am perfectly sure of it and so is Esther by this time. You may not understand, but we have lived together in the woods for over a year and have studied woodcraft until we know almost as much about it as Indian women. The two columns of smoke which we have discovered rising at regular intervals are a woodsman's signal for help. We must go to Betty at once. It is dark and we are not familiar with your forests, so that it would take us a longer time to reach her alone. Will you be good enough to lead the way?"
There was no disputing the girl's quiet conviction, and as Esther was now equally convinced, neither young man advanced any denial. Only Carl von Reuter plunged ahead so rapidly that following him was almost out of the question.