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.