Bates felt it an odd thing that he should be wandering about with a girl’s frock in his hands.  It was old, but he did not remember that he had ever touched it before or noticed its material or pattern.  He looked at it fondly now, as he held it ready to renew the dog’s memory if his purpose should falter.

The dog went on steadily enough until he got to the edge of the woods, where his footsteps made a great noise on the brittle leaves.  He kicked about in them as if he liked the noise they made, but offered to go no farther.  Bates looked at them and knew that the dog was not likely to keep the scent among them if the girl had gone that way.  He stood erect, looking up the drear expanse of the hill, and the desperate nature of his situation came upon him.  He had been slow—­slow to take it in, repelling it with all the obstinacy of an obstinate mind.  Now he saw clearly that the girl had fled, and he was powerless to pursue at the distance she might now have reached, the more so as he could not tell which way she had taken.  He would have left his live stock, but the helpless old woman, whose life depended on his care, he dared not leave.  He stood and considered, his mind working rapidly under a stress of emotion such as perhaps it had never known before—­certainly not since the first strong impulses of his youth had died within his cautious heart.

Then he remembered that Sissy had walked about the previous day, and perhaps the dog was only on the scent of yesterday’s meanderings.  He took the animal along the top of the open space, urging him to find another track, and at last the dog ran down again by the side of the stream.  Bates followed to the vicinity of the house, no wiser than he had been at first.

The dog stopped under the end window of the house where old Cameron fell, and scratched among the leaves on the fresh fallen earth.  Bates was reminded of the associations of the fatal spot.  He thought of his old friend’s deathbed, of the trust that had there been confided to him.  Had he been unfaithful to that trust?  With the impatience of sharp pain, he called the dog again to the door of the house, and again from that starting-point tried to make him seek the missing one.  He did this, not because he had much hope in the dog now, but because he had no other hope.

This time the dog stood by, sobered by his master’s soberness, but looking with teasing expectancy, ready to do whatever was required if he might only know what that was.  To Bates, who was only anxious to act at the dumb thing’s direction, this expectancy was galling.  He tore off a part of the dress and fastened it to the dog’s collar.  He commanded him to carry it to her in such excited tones that the old woman heard, and fumbled her way out of the door to see what was going on.  And Bates stood between the dumb animal and the aged wreck of womanhood, and felt horribly alone.

Clearly the sagacious creature not only did not know where to find the girl, but knew that she was gone where he could not find her, for he made no effort to carry his burden a step.  Bates took it from him at last, and the dog, whose feelings had apparently been much perturbed, went down to the water’s edge, and, standing looking over the lake, barked there till darkness fell.