the first clue. Coming
below after her hours of rest, she found the kitchen deserted, and all
labor at a standstill. Hearing voices without she questioned the first
she met and was told in faltering tones:

"The bonny little maid is--lost!"

"_Lost?_ Where, then, is Anton?"

"Gone with a parcel to the far-away camp. The mistress sent him for Mrs.
Hungerford."

"Well, but, the maid was with him. That is she sought to be. I heard her
call after him as he rode away and I thought her cries would split my
aching head. He was galloping out of the far gate and she a-chase. They
need not seek her hereabouts."

Said the mistress, in vast relief:

"I might have known. I might have guessed. He a mischievous tease, she a
wild, impulsive child." Then she hurried to poor Auntie Lu, sitting
disconsolate beside the well with Dorothy clasping her hand in her own
small ones, trying to comfort as best she could, and exclaimed: "Fear no
more! We should have thought at once the prank that madcap would be at!
She saw Anton ride away to the camp and she has followed him. The maid
who was ill remembers. She is safe with her father long before this.
Come in by, now, come in and have a cup of tea. A cup of tea will set
you up again like anything."

Aunt Lu was greatly cheered but it took more than the other's panacea of
a "cup of tea" to banish all anxiety; yet in the hope that had been
raised she passed the remainder of that dreadful day as calmly as she
could and without burdening others with the fear which still lingered in
her heart.

Upon his wife's report the farmer left off prying into all the home
places and saddled his fleetest horse. He sent all the men back to the
fields to house the abandoned hay machines and rusting ploughs, and to
attend the many duties of so great a farm. But he took one man with him
and a "snack" of supper in their pockets. It would be a long ride there
and back and a detour might be necessary. Wherever he found sign of the
child's wandering, should she by chance have lost the trail of Anton,
whom she followed, he would keep to the signs and not the shortest
route. Many a place there was, of course, where even the surest-footed
horse could not travel, and only a foot passage be made with difficulty.

But he rode round to Auntie Lu, now coaxed within doors to an open
window, and cheerily bade her:

"Keep stout heart, my woman dear. When you see my grizzled face again
you shall see your Molly's bonny