Then there was a heavy tramp on the stairs, and Captain Abraham French stood in the door, his stern weather-beaten face white and set.  Mrs. Polly followed him, looking very pale and excited.

“When did you see anything of our Hannah?” asked Captain French, controlling as best he could the tremor in his resolute voice.

Ann rose, gathering up her big blue apron, cards, wool and all.  “Oh,” she cried, “not since last Sabbath, at meeting!  What is it?”

“She’s lost,” answered Captain French.  “She started to go up to her Aunt Sarah’s Monday forenoon; and Enos has just been down, and they haven’t seen anything of her.”  Poor Captain French gave a deep groan.

Then they all went down into the kitchen together, talking and lamenting.  And then, Captain French was galloping away on his gray horse to call assistance, and Ann was flying away over the fields, blue apron, cards, wool and all.

“O, Ann!” Mrs. Polly cried after, “where are you going?”

“I’m going—­to find—­Hannah!” Ann shouted back, in a shrill, desperate voice, and kept on.

She had no definite notion as to where she was going; she had only one thought—­Hannah French, her darling, tender little Hannah French, her friend whom she loved better than a sister, was lost.

A good three miles from the Wales home was a large tract of rough land, half swamp, known as “Bear Swamp.”  There was an opinion, more or less correct, that bears might be found there.  Some had been shot in that vicinity.  Why Ann turned her footsteps in that direction, she could not have told herself.  Possibly the vague impression of conversations she and Hannah had had, lingering in her mind, had something to do with it.  Many a time the two little girls had remarked to each other with a shudder, “How awful it would be to get lost in Bear Swamp.”

Anyway, Ann went straight there, through pasture and woodland, over ditches and stone walls.  She knew every step of the way for a long distance.  When she gradually got into the unfamiliar wilderness of the swamp, a thought struck her—­suppose she got lost too!  It would be easy enough—­the unbroken forest stretched for miles in some directions.  She would not find a living thing but Indians; and, maybe, wild beasts, the whole distance.

If she should get lost she would not find Hannah, and the people would have to hunt for her too.  But Ann had quick wits for an emergency.  She had actually carried those cards, with a big wad of wool between them all the time, in her gathered-up apron.  Now she began picking off little bits of wool and marking her way with them, sticking them on the trees and bushes.  Every few feet a fluffy scrap of wool showed the road Ann had gone.

But poor Ann went on, farther and farther—­and no sign of Hannah.  She kept calling her, from time to time, hallooing at the top of her shrill sweet voice:  “Hannah!  Hannah!  Hannah Fre-nch.”