“We don’t know,” panted Randolph, answering her last question. “She was just going down the third time. Where shall we take her?”
“Up to the Indians’ tent,” said Bess. “It’s only a few steps from here. I left Tom and Ruel there, while I came to look for you. Here, let me help.”
“Bring her lilies,” added Kittie sadly. “Poor little Pet, she had only gathered two!”
The mournful procession took up its march through the woods, Bess and Randolph carrying Pet between them. Kittie followed, with the lilies, helping when she could.
Pet Sibley was a girl slightly younger than her companions, who lived near the Percivals in Boston. When the invitation came from uncle Will Percival in June for them to spend their summer vacation, or a part of it, with him and aunt Puss—as the children called his wife—at The Pines, the girls begged permission, which was heartily granted, to bring their friend Pet with them. She was a frank, good-hearted girl, with light, rippling hair, blue eyes, and a sunny disposition which always looked on the bright side of everything and perhaps was a bit too forgetful of the earnest in life. If that, and her evident pleasure in her own pretty face, were faults, they were very forgivable ones; for she was sweet and true at heart, after all. The fun of the whole thing was, that she had never lived in the country. She was a thoroughly city-bred girl; had travelled in Europe when she was a wee child, had lived two or three years in hotels and “apartments,” and knew absolutely nothing of field and forest. A more complete contrast to sober, thoughtful Kittie, and energetic “Captain Bess,” could hardly be imagined. So it came about that, as often happens with people of widely varying dispositions, all three loved one another dearly.
Randolph was in the second class at the Boston Latin School, and had won three prizes that spring, two for scholarship, and one for drilling.
On this particular morning Ruel, a guide, trapper, and man-of-all-work at Mr. Percival’s farm in the heart of the Maine woods, had taken the young folks off for a tramp to Loon Pond, a pretty sheet of water some four miles long by one and a half broad. They had enjoyed themselves immensely—Randolph, Tom, and the three girls—running races along the forest paths, gathering mosses, ferns and queer white “Indian pipes,” or listening to Ruel’s quaint sayings as he talked of birds and wild creatures of the wood, with not a little philosophy thrown in.
At the distance of about a furlong from the pond, they had come out upon a little clearing, on the further edge of which was a rude tent of canvas. In the doorway sat an Indian squaw, with one tiny brown pappoose in her arms, and another playing on the grass near by. The father of the babies she said, on inquiry, was off somewhere in the woods. She had a few baskets for sale, and while Bess and the two boys stopped to look at these and play with the babies, Kittie and Pet had run on ahead, and having reached the shore of the pond, had come upon an old boat, apparently used for a long time past by no one, except perhaps the Indian when he was not too lazy to fish. Into this boat they had climbed, screaming and laughing, girl-fashion, and hastily pushing it off with the one oar which lay in the bottom, had been trying to collect a bunch of lilies to surprise the rest, when the accident happened as Kittie described it.
It took but a few minutes for the mournful little group to reach the camp, though the distance seemed miles. Pet showed not the slightest sign of life and her pretty hair almost touched the ground as it hung over Randolph’s shoulder and swayed to and fro as he walked.
Ruel’s quick eye was the first to catch sight of them, and to take in the situation.