Aye, that was the question.  Once more he raised his voice and shouted with might and main, but as before no answer came back.

Harvey was now master of himself.  He had recovered from the shock that at first almost took away his senses and he was able to think and act with his usual coolness.  But with this, the belief that Hugh and Tom had something to do with the disappearance of Dollie grew until at times he was without any doubt at all.  Occasionally, however, he wavered in his belief.

Thus it was that two theories offered themselves.  The first was that Dollie had set out to find him and had wandered up the mountain path to some point above the bridge and then had strayed from it and become lost.  Worn out, she had laid down and was at that moment asleep.

The corollary of this theory was that she had perished with cold, or would thus perish before daylight.  True, she was well clad when she went out that afternoon to play, but her hood was gone and she could not escape the biting wind that pierced the heavy clothing of Harvey himself.  Then, too, there was the danger from the wild beasts, of which he had had too late an experience to forget.

Should it prove that Dollie went off in the manner named, then Harvey made a great error in setting out alone to search for her.  He ought to have roused the village, and, with the hundreds scouring the mountains, helped by torches and dogs, discovery could not be delayed long.

The other and darker theory was that she had been seen by some of his enemies as she went into the woods and had been coaxed to some out-of-the-way place, where her abductors meant to hold and use her as a means of bringing the superintendent to terms.  All must have known that no method could be so effective as that.

It was hard to believe that the evil-minded men would go any further.  Yet it was easy for them to do so; they could make way with a little child like her and have it seem that her death was caused by falling over the rocks or by some other accident that might easily come to her.

“O’Hara and Hansell must have known all about it when I was in their cabin.  They were afraid to assail me in the cabin, for I was prepared, and the fear of the law kept them from following me after I left their place.”

Harvey was thinking hard when he caught the well-known light, among the trees in the cabin.

“He, Tom and Jack, precious scamps all of them, are exulting over the sorrow they have caused, but they shall pay for it.”

The latch-string had not yet been withdrawn.  Harvey gave it a jerk, followed by a spiteful push that threw the door wide open.  Disappointment awaited him.  Neither Hugh nor Tom was there, but Jack, looking like a twin brother of Tom, was in the act of lighting the pipe that his relative had probably left for his use.  He was alone, not even the hound being present.

Jack had partly risen to his feet to reach the pouch of tobacco on the short mantel above the fireplace.  He paused and looked over his shoulder with a startled expression at the visitor who made such an emphatic entrance.