hich she had disappeared. He looked at them hard, frowning a
little and nodding to himself, and went stalking mightily among the
ferns. "It was 'ere she went?" he inquired, as he reached the dark
path, and being assured that it was, he thrust in and commenced his
search. The pond seemed to give him ideas, which old Jenks disposed
of, and he marched on till he came out to the edge of the fields,
where the hay was yet uncut. Joan could not have crossed them without
leaving a track in the tall grass as clear as a cart-rut.

"We 'ave to consider the possibilities of the matter," said the
superintendent. "Assumin' that the wood 'as been thoroughly searched,
where did she get out of it?"

"Searched!" growled old Jenks. "There ain't a inch as I 'aven't
searched an' seen, not a inch."

"The kidnappin' the'ry," went on the superintendent, ignoring him and
turning to Mother, "I don't incline to. 'Owever, we must go to work
in order, an' I'll 'ave my men up 'ere and make sure of the wood. All
gypsies an' tramps will be stopped and interrogated. I don't think
there's no cause for you to feel anxious, ma'am. I 'ope to 'ave some
news for you in the course of the afternoon."

They watched him free-wheel down the lane and shoot round the corner.

"Oh, dear," said Mother, then: "Why doesn't the baby come? I wish
Daddy weren't away."

Now that the police had entered the affair Joyce felt that there
remained nothing to be done. Uniformed authority was in charge of
events; it could not fail to find Joan. She had a vision of the
police at work, stopping straggling families of tramps on distant
by-roads, looking into the contents of their dreadful bundles,
flashing the official bull's eye lantern into the mysterious interior
of gypsy caravans, and making ragged men and slatternly women give an
account of their wanderings. No limits to which they would not go;
how could they fail? She wished their success seemed as inevitable to
her mother as it did to her.

"They're sure to bring her back, Mother," she repeated.

"Oh, chick," said Mother, "I keep telling myself so. But I wish I
wish."

"What, Mother?"

"I wish," said Mother in a sudden burst of speech, as if she were
confessing something that troubled her; "I wish you hadn't seen that
wood-lady."

The tall young constables and the plump fatherly sergeant annoyed old
Jenks by searching the wood as though he had done nothing. It was a
real search this time. Each of them took a p