"What's to do with the old dog, that he doesn't come at call?" said Geordie Garthwaite; "I heard both the dogs barking terribly fierce in the night; but Chance is no where this morning. Is the young master at home, I wonder?"
"Yes," said Mat, "so far as I know. He was in last night. But he's lying late this morning;" and away they went to dig out some of their sheep, which had been buried in the drifts of the night.
"Miles dear," shouted Alice at her brother's door—"Miles, come to breakfast."
No answer.
She opened the door and he was not there. There was the bed just as her own careful hands had left the sheet neatly turned down, and the pillow round and smooth. The casement was not quite closed, and there was a little bank of snow lying on the windowsill.
A single glance showed her all this, and she rushed down to the kitchen in consternation "Oh, Mark! he isn't there; and his bed is all untouched. He must have gone out—and oh I think of the snow."
"Gone?" exclaimed Mark, with terror in his face, "and such a night!"
He ran up stairs to Miles's room to try to collect evidences of what had occurred; but he could gain nothing here. Then the place where hung the hats and plaids was examined; and Miles's hat and plaid were gone; his boots were gone too, and his mountain staff.
"He has taken his 'comforter,'" sobbed Alice, "mine that he liked so much; and the gloves that I knitted."
"Has he?" said Mark, with a brightening face, "then he wasn't desperate; he wouldn't have done things so orderly, unless he were cool and clear. There is hope in that, dear Alice;" and he took her hand tenderly. "I will go and seek him; and thou must trust me, as thou would'st a brother."