“Margaret, oh, Margaret!” The teacher’s voice rang through the night. She cupped her hands and called again when there was no response to her first one. Once more she called but still there was no answer from the massed maples behind them or the dark waters of the lake.
“This is more than a joke,” muttered Ned Burns, the class president. “We’d better get out and have a look around.”
He stepped toward the fire, threw on an armful of fresh, dry sticks, and the flames leaped higher, throwing their reflection further into the night.
“We’ll take a look into the woods,” he told Miss Carver, “and you and the girls hunt along the lake shore. Margaret might have fallen and hurt herself.”
Miss Carver agreed and the girls gathered around her. There was a queer tightness in Helen’s throat and a tugging at her heart that unnerved her—a vague, pressing fear that something was decidedly wrong with Margaret.
The boys disappeared into the shadows of the timber and the girls turned toward the lake shore.
They had just started their search when Miss Carver made an important discovery.
“Girls,” she cried, “One of the rowboats we rented this afternoon is missing!”
Helen ran toward the spot, the other girls crowding around her. They could make out the marks of the boat’s keel in the sand and a girl’s footprints.
“Those prints were made by Margaret’s shoes,” said Helen. “You can see the marks of the heel plates she has on her oxfords.”