I am; just as I was about to speak, I caught the faint sound--just
as we've both heard hundreds of times."

"From what point did it seem to come?"

His friend pointed due south.

"Strange it is that ye didn't catch the same."

"So I think; it may be, Terry, that you are mistaken, and you wanted to
hear the bell so much that the sound was in your fancy."

The lad, however, would not admit this. He was sure there had been no
mistake. Fred was about to argue further when all doubt was set at rest
by the sound of a cow-bell that came faintly but clearly through the
forest.

"You are right," said Fred, his face brightening up; "we are on the
track of old Brindle sure enough. It's mighty strange though how she
came to wander so far from home."

"She got lost I s'pose," replied Terry, repeating the theory that had
been hit upon some time before.

"It may be, but it is the first instance I ever heard of, where an
animal lost its way so easily."

The boys were in too high spirits, however, to try to explain that which
puzzled them. The cow was a valuable creature, being the only one that
belonged to the family with whom Terence lived, and who therefore could
ill afford her loss.

The friends had pushed perhaps a couple hundred yards further when
Terry called to Fred that he was not following the right course.

"Ye're bearing too much to the lift; so much so indaad that if ye kaap
on ye'll find yersilf lift."

"Why, I was about to turn a little more in that direction," replied the
astonished Fred; "you are altogether wrong."

But the other sturdily insisted that he was right, and he was so
positive that he stopped short, and refused to go another step in the
direction that his friend was following. The latter was just as certain
that Terry was amiss, and it looked as if they had come to a deadlock.

"There's only one way to settle it," said Fred, "and that is for each of
us to follow the route he thinks right. The cow can't be far off and we
shall soon find out who is wrong. The first one that finds Brindle shall
call to the other, and he'll own up what a stupid blunder he has made."

"Ye are speakin' me own sentiments," replied Terry, who kept looking
about him and listening as if he expected every moment that the cow
herself would solve the question. Fred Linden read the meaning of his
action, and he, too, wondered why it was that when both had plainly
caught the tinkle of the telltale bell, they should hear i