to make him seek the missing one. He did this, not
because he had much hope in the dog now, but because he had no other
hope.

This time the dog stood by, sobered by his master's soberness, but
looking with teasing expectancy, ready to do whatever was required if he
might only know what that was. To Bates, who was only anxious to act at
the dumb thing's direction, this expectancy was galling. He tore off a
part of the dress and fastened it to the dog's collar. He commanded him
to carry it to her in such excited tones that the old woman heard, and
fumbled her way out of the door to see what was going on. And Bates
stood between the dumb animal and the aged wreck of womanhood, and felt
horribly alone.

Clearly the sagacious creature not only did not know where to find the
girl, but knew that she was gone where he could not find her, for he
made no effort to carry his burden a step. Bates took it from him at
last, and the dog, whose feelings had apparently been much perturbed,
went down to the water's edge, and, standing looking over the lake,
barked there till darkness fell.

The night came, but the girl did not come. Bates made a great torch of
pine boughs and resin, and this he lit and hoisted on a pole fixed in
the ground, so that if she was seeking to return to her home in the
darkness she might be guided by it. He hoped also that, by some chance,
the surveying party might see it and know that it was a signal of
distress; but he looked for their camp-fire on the opposite hills, and,
not seeing it, felt only too sure that they had gone out of sight of
his. He fed and watched his torch all night. Snow began to fall; as he
looked up it seemed that the flame made a globe of light in the thick
atmosphere, around which closed a low vault of visible darkness. From
out of this darkness the flakes were falling thickly. When the day broke
he was still alone.

CHAPTER VII.

When Saul and the oxen were once fairly started, they plodded on
steadily. The track lay some way from the river and above it, through
the gap in the hills. Little of the hills did Saul see for he was moving
under trees all the way, and when, before noon, he descended into the
plain on the other side, he was still for a short time under a canopy of
interlacing boughs. There was no road; the trees were notched to show
the track. In such forests there is little obstruction of brushwood, and
over knoll and hollow, between the trunks, the oxen labou