He took his aunt to her big chair, piled the stove from the well-stored wood-box, and lit it.  Then, shutting the door of the room where the disordered bed lay and throwing the house-door open, he bid the visitors enter.  He went out himself to search the surroundings of the house, but Sissy was not to be found.

The dog did not follow Bates on this search.  He sat down before the stove in an upright position, breathed with his mouth open, and bestowed on the visitors such cheerful and animated looks that they talked to and patted him.  Their own dogs had been shut into the empty ox-shed for the sake of peace, and the house-dog was very much master of the situation.

Of the party, the two surveyors—­one older and one younger—­were men of refinement and education.  British they were, or of such Canadian birth and training as makes a good imitation.  Five of the others were evidently of humbler position—­axe-men and carriers.  The eighth man, who completed the party, was a young American, a singularly handsome young fellow—­tall and lithe.  He did not stay in the room with the others, but lounged outside by himself, leaning against the front of the house in the white cold sunlight.

In the meantime Bates, having searched the sheds and inspected with careful eyes the naked woods above the clearing, came back disconsolately by the edge of the ravine, peering into it suspiciously to see if the girl could, by some wild freak, be hiding there.  When he came to the narrow strip of ground between the wall of the house and the broken bank he found himself walking knee-deep in the leaves that the last night’s gale had drifted there, and because the edge of the ravine was thus entirely concealed, he, remembering Sissy’s warning, kicked about the leaves cautiously to find the crack of which she had spoken, and discovered that the loose portion had already fallen.  It suddenly occurred to him to wonder if the girl could possibly have fallen with it.  Instantly he sprang down the ravine, feeling among the drifted leaves on all sides, but nothing except rock and earth was to be found under their light heaps.  It took only a few minutes to assure him of the needlessness of his fear.  The low window of the room in which Sissy had slept looked out immediately upon this drift of leaves, and, as Bates passed it, he glanced through the uncurtained glass, as if the fact that it was really empty was so hard for him to believe that it needed this additional evidence.  Then the stacks of fire-wood in front of the house were all that remained to be searched, and Bates walked round, looking into the narrow aisles between them, looking at the same time down the hill, as if it might be possible that she had been on the shore and he had missed her.

“What are you looking for?” asked the young American.  The question was not put rudely.  There was a serenity about the youth’s expectation of an answer which, proving that he had no thought of over-stepping good manners, made it, at the same time, very difficult to withhold an answer.