g. "If she has, we'll have our hunt in vain."

Polly and Betty considered a minute. Then Polly said:

"Of course not; if she had, she'd have been home hours ago."

When they reached the apple orchard they noticed that the print of the
snow shoes was less regular.

"She's stopped to rest here," Betty said, pointing to the ground. "Look
how irregular these prints are."

"Come on!" Polly said, quickening her steps, "we may be near her."

"Hold on!" Betty cried, "look, something happened here; it looks as if
she'd fallen down!" A big dent in the snow, as if a body had been lying
on the ground, showed up in the prints of Maud's snow shoes.

"Here's a queer thing," Lois pointed out, "one shoe's going in one
direction and one in another."

Polly walked on a little way, and then called to the others, excitedly:

"Here are the prints and look, side of them there's a mark as if she
were dragging something along with her."

"What's that black spot farther on?" Lois demanded.

They looked in the direction in which she pointed and saw, a couple of
hundred yards farther on, something that showed black against the snow.

"It's a man's hat! Oh, Poll, I'm scared to death," Lois said, trembling,
when they came up to it. Murder and every possible form of highway
robbery passed through her mind.

Betty turned white, and Polly bit her lip.

"Come on!" she said, bravely, "we've got to find her."

"Jemima!" Betty groaned; "it's beginning to snow, too." She picked up
the hat; it was almost buried by the snow, and looked green with age.
They were tired by this time--walking in snow shoes is very much easier
than trudging in rubber boots--and they realized with a shudder that
Maud and her unknown companion had a long start of them.

They followed the track as fast as they could. It went on through the
orchard and down the hill, and then over the bridge. It stopped there
and zigzagged in every direction. The girls looked and exchanged
frightened glances. Betty's heart was beating furiously and Lois' knees
trembled. They forged on, the prints were clear again, and went
straight up the hill, always accompanied by the queer, uneven path
beside them.

"She must be dragging something," Polly said. "That's all that that
track can mean."

"Or some one is dragging her," Lois spoke the thought that was uppermost
in Betty's mind.

"Nonsense!" Polly ejaculated. "I don't believe it. I tell you Maud is
all right, wherever she is. I know