“It seems so wondahful to think that we are safe up above the storm.  Look!  There is a rainbow!  And there is anothah and anothah!  Oh, it is so beautiful, I’m glad it rained!”

The storm, that had lasted for nearly an hour, gradually cleared away till the valley lay spread out before them once more, in the sunshine, green and dripping from the summer shower.

“Well,” said the Little Colonel, as they started homeward, “aftah this I’ll remembah that no mattah how hard it rains the sun is always shining somewhere.  It nevah hides itself from us.  It is the valley that gets behind the clouds, just as if it was puttin’ a handkerchief ovah its face when it wanted to cry.  It’s a comfort to know that the sun keeps shining, on right on, unchanged.”

It was nearly dark when they reached the little inn again in Zug.  The narrow streets were wet, and the eaves of the houses still dripping.  The landlord came out to meet them with an anxious face.  “Your friend, the old Major,” he said, in his broken English, “he have not yet return.  I fear the storm for him was bad.”

“Where did he go?” inquired Mr. Sherman.  “I did not know that he intended leaving the hotel at all to-day.  He did not seem well.”

“Early after lunch,” was the answer.  “He say he will up the mountain go, behind the town.  He say that now he vair old man, maybe not again will he come this way, and one more time already before he die, he long to gather for himself the Alpine rosen.”

“Have you had a hard storm here?” asked Mrs. Sherman.

The landlord shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands.

“The vair worst, madame.  Many trees blow down.  The lightning he strike a house next to the church of St. Oswald, and a goatherd coming down just now from the mountain say that the paths are heaped with fallen limbs, and slippery with mud.  That is why for I fear the Major have one accident met.”

“Maybe he has stopped at some peasant’s hut for shelter,” suggested Mr. Sherman, seeing the distress in Lloyd’s face.  “He knows the region around here thoroughly.  However, if he is not here by the time we are through dinner, we’ll organise a searching party.”

“Hero knows that something is wrong,” said the Little Colonel, as they went into the dining-room a few minutes later.  “See how uneasy he seems, walking from room to room.  He is trying to find his mastah.”

The longer they discussed the Major’s absence the more alarmed they became, as the time passed and he did not return.

“You know,” suggested Lloyd, “that with just one arm he couldn’t help himself much if he should fall.  Maybe he has slipped down some of those muddy ravines that the goatherd told about.  Besides, he was so weak and tiahed this mawnin.’”

Presently her face brightened with a sudden thought.

“Oh, Papa Jack!  Let’s send Hero.  I know where the Majah keeps his things, the flask and the bags, and the dog will know, as soon as they are fastened on him, that he must start on a hunt.  And I believe I can say the words in French so that he’ll undahstand.  Only yestahday the Majah had me repeating them.”