These were dreadful thoughts, but there was excuse for them, his grief made him half frantic.

The path over which he believed Dollie had either strayed or been led or carried, entered the woods about a hundred yards from the village and gradually sloped and wound upward for a mile, when it passed the door of Hugh O’Hara’s cabin and lost itself in the solitude beyond.

The sky had cleared still more during the interval since he came down the mountain side, and he could not only see the course clearly, but could distinguish objects several rods away, when the shadow of the overhanging trees did not shut out the light.  But the season was so far along that few leaves were left on the limbs and it was easy, therefore, for him to keep the right course.

He had not gone far when he stopped and shouted the name of Dollie.  The sound reached a long way, and he repeated the call several times, but only the dismal wind among the limbs gave answer.

Striding forward, he stood a few minutes later on the margin of the creek that was spanned by the fallen tree.

“She would not have dared to walk over,” was his thought:  “she must have been on this side, if she wandered off alone.”

A moment later he added: 

“No; for the very reason that it is dangerous, Dollie would run across; it would be no trouble for her to do so, and there is just enough peril to tempt her.  Could she have fallen in?”

He looked at the dark water as it swept forward and shivered.

“Rivers and lakes and seas and streams are always thirsting for human life, and this may have seized her.”

Tramping through the undergrowth that lined the bank he fought his way onward until he stood beside the rocks where the waters made a foaming cascade, as they dashed downward toward the mills far away.

“If she did fall in, she must be somewhere near this spot——­”

His heart seemed to stop beating.  Surely that dark object, half submerged and lying against the edge of the bank, where the water made an eddy, must be her body.  He ran thither and stooped down.

“Thank God,” was his exclamation, after touching it with his hands, and finding it a piece of dark wood that had been carried there from the regions above.

Back he came to where the fallen tree spanned the creek, and hurried across.  No snow was falling, but the earth was white with the thin coating that had filtered down hours before.

“Had it come earlier in the day,” he thought, “it would help us to trace her, but now it will hide her footprints.”

Hardly a score of steps from the creek his foot struck something soft, and he stooped down.  Straightening up, he held a small hood in his hand, such as children wear in cold weather.  Faint as was the light, he recognized it as Dollie’s; he had seen her wear it many times.

“What can it mean?” he asked himself; “I must have stepped over or on that on my way down, but did not notice it.  Yes, Dollie is on this side the stream, but where?”