vy; all the more because the cheerfulness
of their society had buoyed up his spirit in their presence, did it now
suffer depression. The awful presentiment began to haunt him that he
would not find the girl that night, that he had in grim reality "lost
her." If this were the case, what a fool, what a madman, he had been to
let go the only aid within his reach! He stopped his rowing for a
minute, and almost thought of turning to call the surveying party back
again. But no, Sissy might be--in all probability was--already in the
house; in that case what folly to have brought them back, delaying their
work and incurring their anger! So he reasoned, and went on towards
home; but, in truth, it was not their delay or displeasure that deterred
him so much as his own pride, which loathed the thought of laying bare
his cause for fear and distress.

CHAPTER VI.

The day was duller now. The sun, in passing into the western sky, had
entered under thicker veils of white. The film of ice on the bay, which
had melted in the pale sunbeams of noon, would soon form again. The air
was growing bitterly cold.

When Bates had moored his boat, he went up the hill heavily. The dog,
which had been shut in the house to guard it, leaped out when he opened
the door. Sissy was not there.

Bates went in and found one of her frocks, and, bringing it out, tried
to put the animal on the scent of her track. He stooped, and held the
garment under the dog's nose. The dog sniffed it, laid his nose
contentedly on Bates's arm, looked up in his face, and wagged his tail
with most annoying cheerfulness.

"Where is she?" jerked Bates. "Where is she? Seek her, good dog."

The dog, all alert, bounded off a little way and returned again with an
inconsequent lightness in tail and eye. One of his ears had been torn in
a battle with the strange dogs, but he was more elated by the conflict
than depressed by the wound. When he came back, he seemed to Bates
almost to smile as if he said: "It pleases me that you should pay me so
much attention, but as for the girl, I know her to be satisfactorily
disposed of." Bates did not swear at the animal; he was a Scotchman, and
he would have considered it a sin to swear: he did not strike the dog
either, which he would not have considered a sin at all. He was actually
afraid to offend the only living creature who could befriend and help
him in his search. Very patiently he bent the dog's nose to the frock
and to the